


Before It's Voiced

by folie_aplusieurs



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Attempts at cuteness, Blood, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Underwater Blow Jobs, Violence, gross wound stuff, i love that that's a tag already, merman au, myths, smut in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-03-20 16:42:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 96,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13721802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folie_aplusieurs/pseuds/folie_aplusieurs
Summary: Pete is a writer.Patrick is something else.And genre has begun to matter.





	1. Genre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, this is K. This is also my first fic for this fandom so don't hesitate to tell me your thoughts. Comments and kudos are always appreciated.

_ gen·re _

_ noun _

_ a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter _

Genre. 

When Pete started writing— years ago with a dusty typewriter in his lap, the participation prize for attending his great uncle’s funeral— they told him to pick a genre. Fantasy. Mystery. Horror. Dystopia. His teachers taught each one with fervor, condescending dips in their smiles before launching into “this is what you write before real literature”. 

Real. Literature. 

An oxymoron. A joke.

When Pete started writing— days after the first red-circled F on a poem about the twisted words in his head— he threw genre out the window. 

He embraced the world instead. 

The real world, Pete found, does not taste of “genres”. It does not let you pick and choose mystery or horror. It does not come with options. You don’t stay on one page. You’re force-fed the entire damn library in one go.

So.

Pete wrote it all.

 

(And then he met him.)

_ (Him) _

 

Years after his breakthrough novel— his best-selling piece about parking lots and Best Buy lights, a confession wrapped in pretty words and labeled lies— Pete took the money and checks. He moved away from the cities that clawed at his mind with theories and questions. He tossed out his laptops and phones. He packed his bags with notebooks and pens, a receipt for a new typewriter in his back pocket and a promise it would arrive at his new home.

His new home, the perfect home. The perfect place for a pretentious man like him.

A home by the water. A house licked and loved by the sea.

An ocean view and a beach for his backyard.

The place where he’d meet  _ him _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Folie-APlusieurs.tumblr.com
> 
> We can chat if you'd like? I'd like it. Nearly as much as I'd like to hear your comments.


	2. Myth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A widely held but false belief or idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. I'm K. Sorry, I don't have anything cooler to say.

_ myth _

 

_ noun _

 

_ A widely held but false belief or idea _

 

Pete didn’t believe he’d made it as an author until he saw his books listed on the New York Times Best Sellers list— more than once, a year for each book. 

He didn’t believe anybody loved his writing until fans lined up outside bookstore signings and conventions, hardcovers smudged and paperbacks dented from how tightly they grasped them. 

He didn’t believe he could write a book until he held the finished product in his hands, a glossy cover and his own name winking back up at him.

Belief has always worked in this way. Years before he picked up a pen with the intent of screaming, he tested his beliefs.

Before the fame and people screaming his name, he didn’t believe in pain until his mind exposed its own mess and tore him to pits of mania and hurt.

He didn’t believe in tears until his own dried on his face each morning.

He didn’t believe in death until those pills started dissolving on his tongue, bitter like the life he was trying to escape.

He didn’t believe in love until he woke with his mother’s arms around him, warmer than the hospital sheets tucked up to his chin.

He didn’t believe in wishes until he saw the imprint of stars behind his eyes each time he blinked. The stars that had been present and brighter than those Best Buy lights, the stars that he had begged to save him. The stars that blinked at him through the hospital room window.

Pete doesn’t believe in anything until he sees it for himself. 

So Pete doesn’t believe in much.

~

So, it goes without saying, Pete didn’t believe he’d actually escaped the chaos and cruelty of city folk and deadlines until the large beach house he bought on a whim was before him. 

His bags hit the wooden floor, dust flying a few graceful inches and then falling back down. He smiles.

“Home,” he whispers, the word loud in the open area. “Home.”

~

It doesn’t feel like home for the first few days, empty as it is with no neighbors for miles. Pete had splurged when he bought the house, finding something recluse and out of the way, somewhere he can write his next book— his last book if his agent’s contract is honest— and then retire to for the rest of his life. The thought alone, of being alone, is enough to ease the pain of imagining another book. It’s not that Pete hates writing. On the contrary, he loves stories and he sees no problem in sharing his plights with the world. What he hates is how those stories sound on someone else’s tongue. What he hates is how easily people mold his words to mean something else. Once the art is gone from his lips, his hands, it becomes something else. And he can’t live with that kind of out-of-control.

Pete ignores these thoughts as he unpacks, taking his time and taking nearly a week. The house is large— too large for merely one person— but he has enough knickknacks and meaningless junk to fill each room. The master bedroom is on the second floor, with a perfect view of the beach and a walk-in closet, but Pete tosses his bags into the room on the main floor. It’s smaller and the adjoining bathroom is a better fit for children, but the window only shows the ocean. If he angles his bed just right, no sand obtrudes his vision and he can pretend he’s sleeping on the sea.

On the third day of the second week, each last bag unpacked, he grins at the set-up. His typewriter is placed on a desk in his room and his notebooks sit along it like soldiers awaiting orders. The backdoor is propped open, allowing the breeze from the ocean to clear out the scent of dust and emptiness. He called his closest friends and family to let them know he’d be hiding away and then he’d locked his phone in a drawer. Everything is perfect.

Everything, that is, except for the kitchen. Pete wanders in, hungry, but, after a second of betrayed silence, he promptly turns around with a disappointed groan. For a handful of minutes, he debates starvation before realizing he’ll have to interact with the people of the town eventually.

Upon finding his keys, he heads to the small store he’d seen while driving through the town. It’s quaint and family-owned, a sign proudly displaying  **Urie’s Seaside Shack.**

“Oh, hey! Welcome to the shop!” A younger man with messy brown hair greets as the bell on the door rings, announcing Pete’s arrival. He grins, adjusts his green apron, and walks over from where he’d been organizing souvenirs on a shelf. “Looking for anything specific?”

“Just groceries,” Pete says, glancing at the man’s name tag. “Thanks, though, um, Brendon.” He winces, hating how unsure he is, saying the boy’s name.

Brendon merely laughs and places his hands on his hips with a nod. “Well, let me know if you need help finding something. My dad’s behind the whole set-up but doesn’t quite understand categories yet. It can be a bit of a maze in here.”

Pete raises an eyebrow dubiously at the rather small store, with a max of six aisles. He’s seen Dollar Stores bigger than this. Still, he nods. “Thanks.” 

Grabbing a basket and narrowing his eyes in thought, Pete heads for the cereal aisle. Brendon follows, pushing a cart of supplies to be stocked and not being at all discreet. Pete ignores him best he can, though the pair of eyes feels grating when he tries to reach for the Lucky Charms at the top shelf. 

It’s no different from the looks he’d get anywhere else in public but he’d come here to escape all that. If Brendon’s going to ask him to sign a copy of another elongated suicide note then—

“Oh, you’re the new guy! Of course, I knew I recognized ya.”

Pete jumps at Brendon’s shout, inadvertently knocking two more cases of cereal into his basket.

“You, I— What?” Pete asks, turning and not bothering to put the boxes back. The more he buys, the less he’ll have to come back here, anyway.

Brendon claps his hands, grinning ear-to-ear. “The new guy. You got that house with the private beach? Man, it’s been years since anyone’s lived there. Usually, only big name celebs will rent it out for a bit but I don’t recognize ya from any shows so I’m guessing that’s not the case here? Either way, it’s a cool house. My friends and I used to sneak onto the beach. Not, um, that we’ll do that now that you’re here.” 

Pete blinks a few times and then nods to himself. “Yeah, well, I— I just needed a change of pace.”

Brendon laughs. “A change indeed! You know, there are rumors about that house. I don’t personally believe them but my friend, Ryan, totally—”

“Brendon!”

Brendon and Pete turn towards the booming voice, connected to an older man standing with his arms crossed in the doorway leading to the back. Brendon’s shoulders deflate and he sighs, stepping back from Pete as the man’s eyes narrow. 

“You finished stocking those shelves, boy?” The man asks, his silver mustache twitching as he spits out the words. Brendon’s face contorts into a grimace before he rolls his eyes.

“In a bit, dad. I was just welcoming our new neighbor,” he says, turning. Dad… Now that Pete knows, he can see some resemblance in the warm brown of their eyes and the confident way they carry themselves. Mr. Urie’s eyes narrow further and he walks towards the two. 

“Neighbor?” His eyes turn on Pete, beadier than Brendon’s but no less emotion-filled. His, however, instead of showing excitement, fill with suspicion. “So you got that beach house.”

It’s not a question but Pete nods, all the same, shifting his weight. “Um, yes.” He hates the celebrity life but, somehow, he thinks having some weight behind his name would make things easier.

Mr. Urie nods slowly, arms folding as Brendon sighs a “dad, god, not right now…”

“There’s a reason people don’t move into that house for long, you know. Things just aren’t right there,” he says. “Things don’t… There are things that shouldn’t exist.”

Pete’s skin prickles but his mind lights with curiosity. “Things? Like what?”

Mr. Urie scoffs. “No one knows for sure but we’ve all felt something off. All had nightmares of something lurking in the nighttime.” He pauses, glancing Pete up and down, from his beat-up vans to the fading blond dye in his hair. Pete does his best not to squirm, though he does wince when Mr. Urie sighs. “You seem like a nice guy so I won’t hold it against you. Just… Don’t go swimming at night, alright?”

“I wasn’t planning on it, sir,” Pete says. Mr. Urie quirks a smile and Pete watches Brendon relax. 

“Good,” he says. “And, if I may, don’t pay attention to the stars. They’re supposed to be brighter out here, lack of city and all. But don’t trust them. They weren’t created to protect you.”

And, with that, Mr. Urie turns, nodding at his son and walking back into his office. Brendon rules his eyes, murmurs “rumors” and gets back to work.

With something akin to fear in his gut, Pete buys nothing but cereal and goes back to the place he’s supposed to call home.

~

The sky outside the window has purpled, edges of day clinging to the horizon as the rest of it fades into dark blue.

A dark blue which makes Pete frown.

His fingers rest lightly over the keys of his typewriter— a fancy new electronic brand that still manages to smell of the ink and machine he loves— and Mr. Urie’s words play over in his mind. Truly, they sound like no more than the raving of a madman but Pete’s had that title pinned on himself more than once. He knows better than to brush aside anybody’s words.

But he also knows he doesn’t believe in anything until he’s seen it. And he hasn’t seen any reason to ignore the stars.

He shakes his head and goes back to the blank page before him. His agent wants a book. The people want a book— he’s told— but he doesn’t have a plot. He’s already scraped out every version of his guts, spat out the stories lingering behind his mind and between his teeth. He’s fed the masses every chunk of darkness he could find.

But now they want another.

One more. 

Pete slams his head down onto the desk. He doesn’t have any more stories to tell. Unless they want to hear the dialogue of creatures in the water. Pete smirks to himself. He’s never written fantasy before and his agent certainly doesn’t specialize in it. Maybe he can get out of the contract faster if he just—

_ Splash _

Pete jerks back up, eyes widening and heart pounding in his chest at the sound of water moving against the rhythm the waves have created. His palms sweat as he pushes his chair back slowly, waiting for confirmation he isn’t losing his mind.

He counts one second. Two.

Three.

Fo—

_ Splash _

Pete jolts again, this time to his feet and to the window, breath fogging up the glass but not so much he can’t see outside. Not so much he can’t see the objects resting on the beach— strange shadows of objects that weren’t out there before.

Pete steps back, taking deep breaths and shaking his head to clear his mind. 

Mr. Urie’s words are getting to him. They must be. None of this had happened on any other night. Surely, the Uries are playing a trick on him. Hadn’t Brendon said something about sneaking back here?

Renewed with courage and reassurance, Pete nods to himself and heads outside.

Still, it’d be a lie to claim he doesn’t grasp the sun charm hanging around his neck— the one and only good luck charm he’s ever received.

“Brendon?” He shouts upon stepping outside. No one answers, not that he expected it. With a sigh, he shouts louder than before. “Brendon!”

The only answer is that of something landing on the sand, spat out from the ocean with no explanation. Pete stumbles back, the grip on his necklace tightening so hard it nearly tears off the cord.

“Brendon?” His voice is softer, fear coating the words. This time, the waves are still.

Pete looks down to his feet, bare unless one were to count the extra length of sweats catching beneath his heels. Sand dusts the porch, sticking to his skin and calling him to the ocean when the wind begins to blow.

Slowly, with trepidation in his breaths, Pete steps off his porch and takes the twenty-seven stairs down onto the beach.

He might have expected some grand revelation, like the stars falling from the sky or a Kraken rising from the waves, but he finds himself more relieved at the nothingness that follows his actions.

Still cautious, he makes his way to the water, frowning at the bits of trash and sticks— the projectiles he had seen. Empty soda cans and plastic bags stuffed with seaweed decorate his backyard, scattered like the sand.

A prank. It has to be a prank.

Pete bends— slow, so slow— and wraps his hand around a sturdier piece of driftwood. Even if it’s a prank— and the splashing near the shore tells him it might be— he doesn’t want to be caught off-guard by some gutsy teenagers or crueler neighbors.

A wall of rocks takes the place of a fence, stretching out into the water to keep the difference between public and private obvious. Manmade and unnatural, more rocks form a walkway along it, far enough into the waves Pete feels sick at the thought of walking it.

But if someone is hiding in the water, that would be the only way they’d be able to get out. And finding them would be the only way to put Pete’s mind at ease.

Pete walks along the rocks, framed by the ocean at his side and a wall at his other. He glances into the water, hoping to see an explanation for these antics.

The reflection of the stars shines back up at him.

He makes it halfway down the walkway, the cove-like shape of the beach circling back in on itself and painting more shadows on top of the already deepened water. He makes it halfway when he realizes there’s no way this is a prank. There’s no way anybody could stay under the water for this long.

He stops, breath caught in his throat like a trap, and turns to face the pale evil light of the stars dancing along the wire-thin angles of the waves. 

This is a trick. Be it of his mind or of some cruel townsfolk… This has to be a trick.

Pete’s grip on the driftwood tightens and, without another thought, he throws it into the water. He doesn’t know what he expects— to frighten off whatever’s doing this or to prove to himself there’s nothing there— but the result is so much worse.

A second passes— a second of a held breath and rippling waves. A second of silence.

And then the wood is tossed back to land at his feet. 

Pete jumps back, the smooth cotton of his t-shirt hitting the cool of the rocks behind him. It scrapes at his skin, nails down his back, but he presses against it as if it were meant to save him. His fingers scramble for the charm— the sun necklace granted to him by a nurse with too much pity in her eyes— but grasp the clasp instead, twisted around his neck from the excessive length. In the rush to twist it back, to feel the comforting cool metal, his fingernail catches on the hook and the necklace falls.

The splash it makes is less than the ones Pete heard before but, somehow, it’s so much more devastating. 

“No!”

He falls to his knees, all fears forgotten, as he stares into the unforgiving eyes of the ocean. His hands plunge into the cold, attempting to do the impossible. He knows the weight of the necklace as easily as he knows his own name. He knows the ocean will not return it. Still, minutes pass. Minutes of nothing more than saltwater spraying the air and ice cold gripping his wrists.

Ice cold, and then, a second later, something else.

Pete stares down at the ocean and the ocean stares back.

Eyes as starry as the night— blue with an inner rim of gold— reveal themselves first, emerging from the water with the same trepidation Pete had felt before. Placed among pale skin, kissed by the moon and embraced by the sea, those blue-gold eyes stare at Pete— the same way Pete feels he is staring at  _ him _ .

Hair as gold as those eyes, a tinge of red where the light hits just right, pressed against the moonlit skin of his face and neck, pasted there by the saltwater sticking to his skin. Reddened lips, parted in awe, and long eyelashes fluttering against soft cheeks. Everything about him is beautiful.

Everything, Pete thinks, even as he takes in the sharpened nails and webbing between each slender finger. Everything, Pete thinks, even as his eyes widen at the gills lining his throat— slits that flutter when he pulls himself further out of the water. Everything, Pete thinks, even as the olive green tail behind him flickers in and out of sight. 

Everything about him is beautiful. 

In the way there is beauty in horrible things, perfection in their otherworldliness, this creature is beautiful. 

This mermaid— no, this merman— is beautiful.

Minutes and maybe hours pass, eyes locked on each other’s as if none of this should exist. Pete’s vaguely aware he should be afraid, that old man’s words echoing in his mind like a prophecy. Don’t go in the water at night. The stars aren’t meant to protect you.

And then the merman moves, his other hand lifting to drop something onto the rock between them. The grip on Pete’s wrist, loose and damp, still lingers and the writer doesn’t dare look down. The way the moon and stars glint serve as enough hint as to what has been returned.

Another moment, broken only by Pete’s bated breath— baited breath as the merman breathes in and as he breathes out. 

“You’re…” Pete breathes. 

And the merman pulls away, slipping back into the water with a sound like a whisper. The waves ripple as Pete watches him swim off, a hand extended towards the creature as if Pete imagines he may follow. The only proof the merman was ever there is the sun necklace at Pete’s knees and the image of a dark green tail darting in and out of the water meters away.

Pete can’t bring himself to move, staring at the ocean, staring at the stars, and waiting for an explanation. 

He saw a merman tonight. But he doesn’t know if he believes it.

~

Sunrise greets an already awakened Pete, a writer gripping his pen like it’s Excalibur itself. His typewriter waits for these notes to be transcribed into words but Pete doesn’t care, the sun highlighting the sand on his fingertips and the saltwater drying in his hair.

He doesn’t care.

He needs to write about the creature he saw last night.

He needs to share another facet of his dream-like life with the world. 

  
  



	3. Mystery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain

_ mys·ter·y  _

 

_ noun _

 

_ something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain. _

 

Pete’s not certain he believes in mermen but he’s starting to believe in ghosts. What else would be causing such strange images to haunt his mind at all hours of day and night?

Haunting him, hanging on his thoughts like a retired coat, is the sight of a creature’s human eyes— intelligent and cunning, blinking wide with beauty in each flutter of those gold lashes. Curiosity— want for another sight, greed for more visions of the impossible being— wars at him, battling the natural instinct to hide from the unknown. His terror stops him from opening the door each time the sun falls, pausing him with his hand shaking and wrapped around the cool handle. 

Terror and fear are what control his movements when— every hour, for the next two nights— he locks the door instead of opens it. 

If he doesn’t see it— see  _ him _ — again, he can convince himself that none of it was real. It was a dream. It was a trick. It was nothing important.

Still, poetic prose of blue-gold eyes and dripping porcelain skin litter the pages now scattered on his bedroom floor. 

A few pages, and nothing more.

His agent had called the night before, the only call he knew he’d have to answer. She had meant well, though her piercing voice never makes her sound well, and reminded him of his two-month deadline. 

_ Another book, Peter _ , she had said.  _ Just one more book. _

Pete stares at the papers by his feet, bare as the night he stepped into sand and saw a—

He runs his hands down his face. He can’t think about the merman. He can’t think about the  _ merman _ . He needs to focus on his book, get to work at putting these character descriptions into a plot and that plot into a book. He needs to end this contract, at last, and free himself from a lifestyle he never asked for. He needs time to write, time to think.

He needs inspiration.

Time hangs suspended as he lets his hands fall once more to his side. 

He needs inspiration. 

Goddamnit.

His eyes, as traitorous as his mind, skip to the window, watching the darkness take reign once more. The stars, blurred by the glass, still spin and beg him to bathe in their light.

The stars weren’t created to protect him, Mr. Urie had said.

But that merman hadn’t harmed him, hadn’t done more than return the charm around Pete’s neck. Pete reaches, stroking his fingers along the sun on the chain. A star of his own.

Those stars weren’t meant to protect him but this one was. And that’s comforting enough to have him walking to the back door.

He expects his mind to freeze up once again, to stop him at the last second and send him off to his bed with fantasies rather than memories. He’s prepared for the short-circuit.

But he doesn’t back down when the door is finally open before him.

Cool air, just like that night. Stars like glitter and ocean waves whispering a prayer to the sand. The moon hangs high in the sky, lighting the path he had taken before.

The ocean doesn’t stray from its rhythm but Pete convinces himself the shadows dancing along the surface are that of a young man swimming back and forth, the scales of his tail catching the light of the stars and throwing it back into the sky. Maybe, instead of clearing his waters of trash and wood, he’s protecting the darkness from those stars.

Hand tightening around his necklace, Pete steps into the night and down into the sand.

He stops at the edge of the waves, licking his lips and waiting for something he hasn’t thought of yet. Another dramatic reveal? A piece of treasure tossed his way? Nothing but the proof he’s lost his mind at last?

Pete bends, eyes on the water as his hand lifts a small pebble from the beach. It’s smooth and, if it were any other situation, perfect for skipping. Pete laments the loss before tossing the stone out into the waves.

He waits, waits to see if it will be tossed back.

Minutes pass and nothing returns, nothing but the erratic pacing of his heart. He can’t be crazy, by God, he can’t be. He will not prove any doctors or therapists correct, no teachers or professors who read too deeply into his books. He’s seen their posts, their articles, their dissertations staining his notifications and emails. It’s taken all his will to keep from shouting THE CURTAINS WERE JUST BLUE all these years.

Lost in thought, Pete nearly misses the sight of rippling splashes against the rocks he’d ventured onto nights ago. 

Nearly, but not quite.

Without thinking, Pete rushes for the walkway, slipping as his feet slide against the wet stone and towards the edge. The water continues to splash, circular movements as if something’s impatient. 

As if someone’s impatient.

Finally, finally, Pete falls to his knees and glances down.

“Please be real,” he begs. “Please, god, be real.”

And, just like before, he emerges from the waves.

Blue-gold eyes like  _ Starry Night _ . Hair as fine as spun-gold, skin as cool as the water around him. A shaking smile on his pretty pink lips. A clawed hand on the rocks, pulling himself up, and another offering the stone back to Pete. Unsure, Pete can tell, the merman raises his eyebrows and waits for Pete to take his rock back.

Pete reaches out but the stone falls into the sea, a yelp escaping the merman’s lips as Pete wraps a hand around his wrist instead, a parody of the night they first met. 

The silence merely lasts a second.

The merman’s lips part with a chilling growl, their innocent appearance pulling back to reveal fangs like that of a cat’s sharpest incisors, lined in a row along his gums. He pulls himself further towards the rocks, as graceful as a ballet dancer. There’s a beauty in the way his claws extend, poised at a precise angle towards Pete’s throat. His eyes darken, the pupils expanding to cover the shade Pete’s filled so many pages with. 

Somehow, Pete doesn’t think to move, eyes caught on the stars shining off the merman’s teeth.

And then, before the impact and with as much suddenness as before, the merman pulls back. A gasp reshapes his lips into something softer, his arms falling into the water and out of Pete’s grip, a cold splash soaking them both at the action. 

But once the water stills, everything is quiet.

Pete watches the merman’s eyes travel across his body, lingering on the tattoos lining his arms and the necklace tracing his throat. Those eyes— those impossible eyes— burn with an awe the merman has no right to feel. He gazes at Pete as if  _ he  _ were the fantastical creature, the myth come true. He has no right to run his tongue over his lips as if this moment has made him nervous. He has no reason to be afraid. They haven’t properly met but Pete can already promise he would never hurt so beautiful a creature— so divine and unlike anything he’s ever seen before.

Pete feels his own version of awe course through his veins, a drug pumped in by this merman’s relentless stare. Pete’s mouth dries the longer he looks, those precious colors in the merman’s gaze looking at everything but Pete’s own eyes. His fingers twitch with the need to reach out once more, to run his hands across the flinching gills and restless tail. He knows not to go swimming at night, knows better than to dive in, but with this creature before him, all sense seems lost. Is this where those old rumors of drowning sailors and besotted men emerged? Is this where Pete gives into darkness because a creature held some light in his eyes?

Pete sees no fault in such a fate.

His hand lifts from where it had fallen to the rocks. And the merman’s eyes flick up to meet his own.

Blue-gold stars embedded in an eternal night sky. Fluttering lashes and an intelligence Pete never would have guessed. 

The creature— the merman, the myth— pauses in his examination. 

And he smiles.

He smiles, and Pete swears he feels the Sun begin to burn in his chest.

“The stars like you,” the merman says. “You are good. You are… safe.”

Pete feels his heart stop and begin again in the time it takes for one breath to fill his lungs.

The merman’s words linger in the air, a silken sheet hung over them because Pete must think in metaphors, must imagine in visions. He can only believe what he sees and there’s no way to believe in this creature’s voice, his voice like every fantasy Pete’s ever had. Warm and kind, softer than his lips appear. Sweetness and all things light, like the stars whispering to Pete each time he looks into the sky. The merman speaks again but Pete can’t register any words, can’t understand any further than the fact this must be real because not even his dreams could create something so beautiful.

The merman’s tone grows louder, grasping for attention Pete’s more than willing to grant. “I said you can call me Patrick. What are you called?”

Pete blinks, teaching himself how to breathe again as he exhales his own name. “Pete.”

“Pete,”the merman— Patrick, Patrick, a merman named  _ Patrick _ — exclaims, grinning widely into the night. He keeps the name at the tip of his tongue, caressing it with his lips when so many others have spat it out.  _ Pete  _ or  _ Peter _ , with a sour turn of the lips. No, Patrick… Patrick repeats the name over and over, a lightness in his voice and wide eyes as if the name may float away from his mouth should he forget to say it again. “I have never met a Pete before.”

“Nor I a Patrick,” Pete says, trying out the name and internalizing it without permission. It starts at his lips, a kiss with himself as presses them together only to part again, the  _ a  _ filling the back of his throat and the harshness at the end swallowing down into his lungs and guts as he says the name. “Patrick the mermaid.”

“And Pete the humaid,” Patrick says, smirking playfully as a child. His tongue darts over his bottom lip again and Pete forces himself to look away.

Time passes, Pete’s eyes catching the waves, the tail, those eyes, and everything in between. He tries his best not to breathe too loudly, to dirty the air with his greedy gasps and sighs as Patrick tilts his head in silent thought. The conversation threatens to die with each passing heartbeat and Pete rushes to save it with the one thought in his mind.

“I’m sorry, this is awkward. I just… I don’t believe in mermaids. Or, I didn’t, so this is all quite strange and I’m sorry but—”

“But no one does,” Patrick says, the smile slipping to something less excited. “So it is okay if you take your time. I have waited for believers before. I can wait again.”

Pete barks out a harsh laugh, betrayed by the hysterics in the tone. “Right, because mermaids are supposed to live forever, right?”

Patrick wrinkles his nose in response, something far too charming for a mysterious creature of the sea. The merman's eyes go distant, glaring at the rocks behind Pete's shoulder.  “Not… Not forever. Longer than your lifetime, yes, but… but not forever.”

There's a sadness in his tone and Pete immediately wants to pry into it the way he's done before. He hasn't always been the kindest writer, fighting to yank the perfect quote or scene from ex-lovers' throats and shrinks' notes with a hook and some well-prepared bait. The image such a thought brings up, though, makes him sick and he changes the subject before the stars, apparently, sic Patrick on him once more.

"You speak English," he observes.

"Or maybe you all speak Mermish," Patrick says. Pete rolls his eyes even as he fights to keep from taking the merman seriously. What if he's not joking? What if all those 'we came from fish' evolution theories were right? What would that mean for Pete's already barely existent philosophies? 

Patrick's smile grows and he splashes his tail in tune with his giggles. "Calm down. You are not the first human to inhabit this home. Others have been here before you and the kinder ones have taught me your culture's language and etiquette. An etiquette you seem to lack, with all these questions."

"Are you always so snarky in your answers?" Pete snaps, hard eyes landing on Patrick again. Patrick, with charisma and dimples in his doughy cheeks as he grins, prompting Pete's offended mutter of, "Cocky little jerk."

Patrick shakes his head with a sigh, folding his arms across the rocks and propping his head upon them. Comfortable. For some reason, it has the adverse effect on Pete. "I have not had friends in years, Pete. Or anyone to speak with, for that matter. Merfolks are meant to be social beings and I have had no one in forever. Forgive a bit of enthusiasm. I like when people live here for a while."

"A while. Implying they don't stay," Pete says, shaking his head and running his hands through his hair, brushing aside his questions of why Patrick is the last one here. "You're not gonna drag me into the ocean, right? I told the realtor I wanted somewhere peaceful and drowning is not fucking peaceful. Oh god, are you evil? You said the stars said I was safe but what does that even mean? And what do they say about you?"

Patrick jerks in the water, pulling away as if the words had physically struck him. Pete's rants stop, frozen in the air like Patrick's wide eyes. Drops of seawater slip from Patrick's hair and down his cheeks like tears, out of place on the stone-cold expression he wears.

"This beach is different," he explains after an extended pause. Pete scoffs at a merman saying such a thing but earns a dark glare from Patrick in response. "Do not take what I say lightly. You wear one on your neck but the stars are not meant to protect you. They are not yours to carry."

"Oh, so they're yours?" Pete asks, the words spilling from his lips before Patrick had fully finished his own sentence. Something dark hangs in Patrick's words and Pete would be a fool to ignore it. "They protect  _you_ , do they?"

"Protect me?" A faint dust of pink coats Patrick's cheeks as his eyes scan back out across the ocean, the endless expanse of waves around them. "They are— They try. They are supposed to. They have, I think."

"What does that  _mean_?" Pete begs once more, his lack of composure proving existent. Patrick's eyes narrow and he shakes his head. He pushes back from the rocks, threatening to sink back under should Pete continue in such a stubborn manner. Pete ignores the signs, though, leaning forward until his stomach turns in fear of falling in. "I want to know you. I want to see more of you but none of this makes sense. I don't know if mermen and myths are good or safe. I don't know if I should be afraid so help me to understand. Please."

Patrick's mouth forms a hard line, lips pressed into a warning. Pete's heart bursts and explodes in his chest, fear becoming terror as Patrick's eyes darken like before.

"I am not a fairytale, do not mistake me for one. I am not a specimen. And I am most certainly not a myth. You see me, do you not? Do not confuse my enthusiasm with acceptance of your presence. These waters are still my home. This beach is still mine. Show me no reason and I will show you no harm."

Patrick's eyes tear away from Pete's, turning to face the horizon with the kind of hurt Pete's described in ink so many times. His lips part only to shut again, eyes hardening as the waves taunt them with never-ending laughter.

"Patrick," Pete says softly, the unfamiliar name feeling right in the cool air. The merman's eyes turn towards him, the blue shade in them as hard as the gold within. "I won't ask any more questions. I'm sorry, really. I just... I've never met anything or anyone like you before. It's hard for me to understand what's right and wrong in this situation. It's... It's really fucking weird."

"Weird?" Patrick smiles half-heartedly, the darkness falling from him like the sun at night. "That is an insult in your language, yes? A man lived here before you. He would say it often and not with the kindness I have heard from some others."

"No, no!" Pete exclaims, trying to keep him from drifting any further away. "I just mean... Look, I'm a writer. I practically specialize in the weird. It's not... It's not a bad thing. Not to me."

Something in his statement catches Patrick's attention.

"A writer?" He asks, moving an inch or so closer. "That is. That is a like a storyteller in your culture, yes?"

"Um?" Pete pulls back now, stunned at Patrick's sudden change of voice. "Ye- Yeah, I suppose. A bit."

Patrick's lips pull up into a grin, lighting his face like a shooting star.

"I love stories," he says, breathless and swimming towards the rocks again, hands dangerously close to Pete's knees as he presses against the stones. "I have not heard any in ages. I used to love the storytellers among my people but, well. Can you tell me one? Tell me what it is you write about?"

_Sometimes, late at night... after the lights have gone out and the mistakes have already been made, when it is heavy and silent and still, I lie awake and listen to my pulse--_

The words arise unbidden in Pete's throat like acid on his tongue as he recalls typing them out for the first time, seeing how they fit in ink. Baring his soul to the world by baring the tip of his pen, baring each bruise and bearing each prod at it from editors and agents and readers and critics.

_Let's start this at the end_

With no other reason than his instincts taking control, Pete finds himself on his feet with heavy breaths leaving his lungs. Patrick stares up at him with innocent confusion on his lips and eyes— a vision Pete's other, more primal, instincts file away for a later time, a safer time. Guilt floods him at the thought but nothing is as bad as the waves of fight-or-flight, the drowning sensation of  _you will not have my broken thoughts and make them yours, you cannot have me_.

"You cannot have me." Pete's unaware he's whispered it until Patrick's head tilts to the side, an ear nearly resting on his shoulder.

"Pete?" He asks. "I thought you—"

"It's late," Pete interrupts, hiding his shaking hands behind his back. "Don't you sleep?"

Patrick grins but it has a sharper edge, something dangerous Pete dare not venture into now. "Not when the moon is so bright."

It makes no sense, it makes no damn sense. It's ominous and foreboding and everything Pete likes to pretend he can be. But he doesn't like that shade of mystery on anyone else. He can't stand the subtle smirk on Patrick's lips.

"Well, I sleep at night," he says, trying hard to hide the disdain slipping into the words. "Or, I try to. Look, Patrick, I'm not running off. I'm... It's not you, it's just... it's—"

"You are not the first. I said that before didn't I?" Patrick's smile softens. His eyes blink in gentle understanding. "One girl threw rocks every day for a week until I stopped trying to gain her attention. Large rocks, not like yours. A mother once pulled her child from me and called me a monster. Another insult, correct? And yet another left the home after the first night." Patrick pauses, takes a breath, and looks away. "If you must leave, do so without excuse. I will be here should you change your mind. Really, I mean you no harm. But I understand even if you do not."

Patrick's smile twitches in what could be bitterness or sadness, darkness or light. The movement hypnotizes Pete, nearly pulls him back down to his knees to properly apologize, to properly convince them both that this is alright. That he will come back.

But then Patrick's smile widens, his lips parting in order to imitate the happiness he had shown at the thought of Pete being a storyteller. And all Pete can see are those fangs beneath those lips, daring him to bare his soul and throat as any weaker being to such a vicious enemy. Pete's no victim. He knows this is the anatomy of a predator.

But he finds his fear is only for his soul and mind. He only nods and steps away because Patrick had asked for a story and that is the one thing Pete can no longer give.

Not his own, anyway.

Patrick's smile falls slowly, a piece of sand drifting into the water, and Pete's fingers twitch. Not with the need to reach and touch, to claim and mark, but to write. To detail this being. To compose a story so far from his own for once. His hands ache to feel the distance, to feel freedom, to feel something that proves there's  _nothing_.

"Good night, Patrick," he says, feet shuffling awkwardly as he waits. He doesn't wish to be the first to leave, to turn his back and flee. Instead, he watches as Patrick's own nerves show through, his green tail flicking in and out of the waves.

"Sleep well." It sounds rehearsed, practiced in Patrick's head and released like an actor's first time reading a script. Pete knows it must be a phrase he was taught, perhaps one he doesn't understand, and the thought soothes him. He's not alone in this strangeness. He's not alone in his worried thoughts.

More words feel like they wish to be spoken, questions of where Patrick goes at night or what he does. And Patrick's own lips echo the desire, forming shapes with no sound.

But then his lips shut. He smiles. And he turns to swim away.

He doesn't sink beneath the water this time, doesn't hide from Pete's sight. The moon casts an eerie glow across his back and shoulders as he easily makes his way to the other side of the water, the stars dancing across his tail each time it comes up for air. Pete's breath catches in his throat at the image.

A merman.

Patrick.

A smile forms on his face, tearing into his lips and bubbling hysterical laughter up in his chest. It eats away the fear and panic residing there, filling him with wonder and infatuation.

A merman.

Though he owns this beach, this house and home, he suddenly feels like a visitor when he makes his way back onto the sand. Each grain pressing against his skin, each stroke of dust across his cheeks lifted by the wind, feels like nothing more than a souvenir. Nothing in this beach is his to keep, is it?

Not these waves, inhabited by the most wondrous being he's ever seen. Not this sand, sticking to him like fellow tourists. Not those stars, created for someone else. Not this moon, not this house, not that  _merman_.

Not Patrick.

The only thing belonging to Pete is the paper he places in his typewriter. The paper he places with the intent to write someone else's— something else's— story.

_I've thought of angels choking on their halos._

_But now I've seen a merman dressed in stars._


	4. Suspense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uncertainty about what may happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a tad late but here's that chapter I promised on Tumblr. I'm gonna go to sleep after hitting post but I hope you all enjoy it lol

_sus·pense_

_noun_

_a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen._

Cold concrete kisses Pete’s hands as he trips over an uneven piece of sidewalk, colorful curses leaving his lips as he shoves himself back up to his feet. Though few others are around, he swears he feels mocking stares on his shoulders and back. With a dissatisfied  _humph_ , he hides his scraped hands in small pockets and continues his walk to the store. With the sun beaming down relentlessly and no sign of wind in sight, it had seemed like a nice day for a walk.

But, then, he hadn’t realized he’s come to accept sand as default ground texture.

He’s made a habit of visiting Patrick each chance he gets, sneaking out at dusk every night for the past week or so. The first few nights had been as strange as the first, Pete yawning and trying to hide how non-nocturnal humans are supposed to be. Patrick might have noticed, mouth mimicking Pete’s in a seemingly subconscious manner. It had made Pete laugh, a sound which caused Patrick to grin. He performed the action again and again until Pete finally defined a yawn to him. Patrick had narrowed his eyes in determination and shut his gills— an ability Pete hadn’t considered before, watching them press down as Patrick pulled himself nearly completely out of the water— and tried it for himself. His excitement at such a mundane activity was enough to demolish any and all awkwardness that may have remained. The following nights were more like acquaintances meeting up, sharing jokes and teasing back and forth.

It’s been… nice.

But it’s also been inspiring. Patrick reveals details of his life, of his existence, each night, whether he means to or not. He compares Pete’s world and culture with his own, small remarks that leave huge questions— questions Pete doesn’t know how to ask. Patrick speaks of the stars and moon and sand as if they can hear him. Patrick behaves like a child with a secret, like an old man who’s seen too much.

He behaves like a book with every other page torn out. No matter how he learns, Pete can only write the barest of plot amongst the world of details.

Not that it’s stopped him from writing, though. No, the light of the sun always rests upon drying ink as Pete dries himself, his hair almost always smelling like the sea. Pete’s schedule has shifted to focusing on Patrick, writing about Patrick, thinking about Patrick, dreaming.

Pete reaches the store, at last, shaking these thoughts from his head.

Before long, he finds himself in Mr. Urie’s shop again, his mind set on coffee and energy drinks. Oh, he’d shunned them back in the city— his mind was awake enough for day and night— but something about the ocean wishes to lull him to sleep. Something about the stars causes his eyelids to slip as Patrick speaks.

Even something about Patrick himself makes Pete feel as if he’s betraying his nightmares and dreams.

Brendon’s in the back when Pete enters, sweeping with earbuds in. Pete sighs at the sight, allowing the door to slam as he sneaks towards the drinks. He’s debating between Red Bull and Monster when he's approached.

“Oh. I was wondering when we’d see you again.”

Mr. Urie.

Fighting back a grimace, Pete turns, both drinks in his hands. “Hey, nice to see you, too.”

Mr. Urie raises an eyebrow and Pete’s certain the man's in need of a wolf-head cane to match his stiff posture and myths.

Not, of course, that his myths are really myths, per se.

“How have you been settling in?” He asks, arms folding across his chest. Pete rubs his lips together and shrugs.

“Fine, I guess. As good as any other move.” The cans begin to warm and slip from the sweat gathering on his palms. “Sorry if I’m not around much. I’m, um, I’m not really good at social interaction in the first place.”

“But I’m sure that doesn’t stop you from sharing stories with fiction?”

Pete’s heart stops.

“I’m sorry, what?”

The curve of Mr. Urie’s lips seems cold, a jagged shard of ice as Pete’s mouth dries. The man waits to speak, glancing towards his oblivious son before facing Pete once more.

“You’re a writer, correct? I recognized your face on one of those magazines that come in every few weeks.” His lips twitch. “What else would I mean?”

Pete swallows, trying to find his voice among the anxiety clogging his throat. “Oh, nothing. It was just phrased strangely.”

“Well, I did say things were strange here,” Mr. Urie states. He stares at Pete as if he knows everything. He picks at his jacket as if pretending he knows nothing.

Pete forces a jagged smile of his own.

“Hate to say I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, yet,” he says. “Well, not at my home anyway.”

Mr. Urie’s eyes fall to cruel slits of darkened brown.

“I should hope for that to be the truth,” he says. “Nothing good comes from fraternizing with the unknown, you know.”

Pete blinks. “Yeah, okay.”

A sigh fills the air, escaping Mr. Urie’s cracking lips. “You may not see it or you may think it odd but know that I do say these things to protect you. Like I said, things aren’t right here. So don’t go brushing aside advice in exchange for—”

“Rumors!”

Brendon’s voice leaps into the conversation, unannounced but every piece present. Pete stumbles back into the fridge from the volume and Mr. Urie turns with a scowl.

“Just rumors, dad,” Brendon says, smile wide and bright and fake. His eyes turn to Pete with a wink. “You know how the old folks are with their myths.”

Pete bites down on his lip with a nod.

So, does everyone know? Is that the assumption he is to make? Mr. Urie’s eyes and Brendon’s words beg him to ask questions, to find answers Patrick hasn’t been willing to give. Why should he fear such a divine creature? Why should he deny his existence?

Pete’s never liked people. So should it come as a wonder he holds his head high in the name of a myth instead?

“That’s right,” he says, looking into Mr. Urie's distrustful eyes. “It’s just a myth. And, take it from a writer, nothing good comes from speaking about them like they’re not there.”

~

Though many have passed, each night still finds Pete at the edge of the rocks with a breath held hostage in his chest. He finds the same patient panic brewing in his mind. He finds the same questions of  _what if it’s all a trick, what if it’s all fake, what if he’s an omen or a visitant?_

_What if he means me harm?_

Tonight, Pete entertains these fears in the time it takes to kneel on the rocks and bend to see his own face gazing up. The water— a deep and dark temptation— ripples from the force of his heavy breaths. He lets the image of a merman’s smile soothe his doubts, a hand drifting into the water as his pictures it.

It doesn’t take long for that smile- the real smile— to gently appear from beneath the waves. Pete pulls his hand from the water as Patrick appears, grinning toothily as he props himself up against the rocks. As always, Pete reaches for his Sun— his charm, his luck, his rosary— and, as always, Patrick’s ever-curious eyes follow the action. The merman lifts a finger, reaching but never touching, and Pete hates how he leans away from the touch. Patrick’s tail flickers at the rejection but he drops his hand all the same.

 _No_ , Pete wants to say.  _It’s not that, at all._

Instead, Pete breathes and watches Patrick copy— gills shutting in a way that makes Pete shudder. Patrick adjusts with deep breaths, breaths that shake his being. He’s not used to being above the surface, Pete notes. He’s not used to air.

He’s not certain if it’s the writer in him making this assessment or if it’s the piece beginning to consider Patrick a friend.

Pete smiles, as shaky as Patrick’s inhales. “Hey.”

Patrick grins back, waiting to calm his breaths before replying. “Hey.”

The countdown for sunrise begins.

Pete’s learned the rules easily— ask basic questions and don’t probe about celestial beings. Pay attention to the lights in the sky, though, for Patrick will leave the second the Sun begins to shine. Pete’s learned to fit his thousands of question into bite-size moments, tearing free a day's worth of information within a handful of hours.

Not that it's ever enough.

“You are early tonight,” Patrick says, blinking. Pete moves to sit with his legs folded beneath him. Patrick watches, his tail twitching in the water, and only glances back up when Pete nods.

“I think I’m getting used to the idea of a merman in my backyard,” he says, uncomfortably comfortable. “Or maybe I just planned on leaving early, too. Sleep is important, you know.”

“Than be like me!” Patrick exclaims. “Sleep at day. The skies are more interesting at night, anyhow.”

Patrick’s eyes find the stars, his joy reflecting their sheen, his tail waving in a way reminiscent of a dog’s. His sharpened teeth press lightly into plump lips and his entire face fills with the same radiance as the glow of the heaven above. Unaware of Pete’s gaze, he brushes hair back from his forehead and exposes more of his moonlit being, dimples framing that impish grin.

Pete smiles, a soft warmth pressing against his chest.

“Yes,” he says, calling Patrick’s eyes away from the sky. “The night is far more beautiful than the day.”

~

Another night with Patrick means another day of writing. Another page of Patrick’s least concerning secrets. Another chapter of his smile.

Pete’s pen hits the desk with alarming force.

Another story, yes, but one that may not be his own to tell.

Pete presses the heels of his hand into his eyes, a loud groan filling the room.

Another day of writing. Another day of growing guilt.

A guilt which, Pete assures himself, has no right to exist. No reason. No explanation for living.

Just like Patrick.

So why should Pete’s stomach turn each time he writes of Patrick’s impossible eyes? Why should his hands hesitate before penning Patrick’s words? Pete can’t be sued by a mythical being and he can't betray someone who has no knowledge of life on land.

So why does he wait to put his words on the page?

This is absurd.

This is a book and a book will not harm anyone. Filling these pages and writing one more novel will not do any harm.

Patrick is a plot-device, Pete tells himself— allowing his writer's mind to speak. Patrick is a reference. Patrick is a muse.

And the relationship between artist and muse is one writing can only benefit from.

Or so Pete tells himself before picking up the pen again.

~

_Another day goes by._

_I’m still not certain if he sees it. He’s always hiding beneath the waves when the sky is light, only appearing like a dream cloaked by the dark. Those shark teeth are the only things that glisten when we meet._

_He is a predator, a hunter. This makes sense, yes?_

_No._

_“I feel safer when I’m with the stars. The Sun is strong but it can’t protect me like they can.”_

_So, would I call him prey? One of the hunted?_

_No._

_Nothing about him makes sense. He suspends all reason on a string and I do not believe even he knows how it is tied to his smile._

_Another day goes by._

_And the end is nowhere in sight_.

~

Pete’s priority with Patrick is to ask cold questions and collect sincere answers. So far, it’s worked. Like a writer’s research, it’s worked. Albeit slowly, with the bare minimum of details exiting Patrick’s lips, but it’s worked.

On the third week, Patrick switches the roles.

“Why leave your city to come to a place like this?” Patrick asks, bored curiosity in his tone as he rests his head against folded arms on the rocks. “I have heard of the towers and luxuries your people can create. They remind me of my people’s kingdoms, the palaces, and extravagance… Why leave a place like that?”

Pete smiles, splashing water lightly onto Patrick’s cheek in an attempt to hide the coiling sickness in his gut. “Are you trying to make me leave? Or do you just really hate this beach?”

“Neither,” Patrick says as he pulls back with a crinkled nose. “But you have described your lifestyle as the kind our royals would have. A celebrity is the same thing, I think. Did you give up your title? Or were you driven out?”

“What? Oh, no, nothing like that. I just—” Pete trails off, lips pursed as he thinks. He looks away from Patrick’s penetrating eyes— only penetrating because they’re always so innocently curious— and lets out a carefully weighted breath. “The city became too heavy for me. The wants and needs and sheer  _weight_ of all those people, whether or not they knew my name… It became too much. It felt like, if I didn’t leave, they would smother me. That or snuff out my will to live entirely.” Though he says it with a humorless laugh, his hands form fists without permission. One reaches to tug painfully at his charm. “My friends thrived on all of it. The livelihood and… and extravagance, I guess. But I was never that guy, you know. It was all too overwhelming. It was slowly suffocating me. And I had to get out before it got worse.” Before it went back to what it was.

Patrick’s silent for a long second, only the soft splashing of his tail interrupting the stillness. When he finally speaks, his voice is just as soft. “Do you still feel that way? Here?”

“Here?” Pete’s eyebrows furrow together, thoughts pausing in his mind as he takes in the salted air on his tongue, the never-ending expanse of ocean. The merman’s voice and gentle eyes. Pete’s smile is lucky to be seen, barely more than the smallest of curves. “No. Here… Here is nice. I can breathe here. And the horizon makes me feel unstoppable.”

“That’s good.” Patrick sounds like he truly means what he says. Pete prepares to widen his smile but catches sight of Patrick’s reluctant eyes before he can. “This beach is good for those wishing to be alone.”

“Hey, I don’t mind you,” Pete rushes to say. “I don’t… You’re not like them. I like talking to you so don’t go thinking that I want to be entirely alone.”

“Oh, I know,” Patrick says, eyes widening a fraction as he reassures Pete as well. “I was merely thinking… I told you merfolks are social creatures, right? Well… By being here, I cannot give into that piece of myself. It does me no harm but it is lonely. I… I often think of my siblings. They were older but they never looked down on me. I used to race them and, sometimes, I think of how this place would be perfect for that. I miss them. My friends… My family… It took mere days for the water to feel empty once and I have not seen them in years. That is all I meant.”

“Oh.” Pete’s mind races to form these words into pretty prose, guilt gnawing at those thoughts even as he finds a place in his plot for it. “Why don’t you ever visit them?”

Patrick’s lips turn to a worried frown and Pete’s mind slams into a wall.

It was his own suggestion but he doesn’t know what he would do if Patrick left.

Of course, his mind aches in the vision of a life without his muse. His heart pounds at the thought of losing a friend. Of losing  _Patrick_.

Eventually— soon but not soon enough for Pete's fearful thoughts— Patrick looks away with a shrug, his cheeks appearing pallid in the new shadows he hides in.

Silence rests between them— a known stranger they’ve been working on kicking out— and Pete hesitates to speak.

Something’s hidden in Patrick’s words. A detail Pete’s story needs. The edge to the tale.

But Patrick’s eyes grow weary even as he smiles at the writer. Pete can’t bring himself to dig any deeper tonight.

“They are playing music further down the beach. Can you hear it?” Patrick's shattering of the silence is as graceful as his movements. He shuts his eyes and sways his head back and forth, a gentle smile on his face. “They come here every month. I love it.”

Pete shuts his own eyes and strains to hear what Patrick speaks of, frowning when only the faintest of notes hit his ears. Something upbeat with strings and piano but nothing Pete can recognize. “How on earth can you hear that?”

“Hm?” Patrick’s eyes open at the same time as Pete’s and he smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, I can never tell which of our senses will align. Oh, but it is nothing to feel bad about! I know humans can taste more things than us!”

Pete nearly laughs. The amused sensation, however, fades when he hears Patrick begin to hum.

Low but lovely, the hint of voice takes the place where music should be. Lifting and falling with each crescendo and dip— memories and nostalgia become Patrick’s words. He sways along with the melody, seemingly unaware of the spell he’s casting. The music speaks lyrics of its own, an offer that says Patrick’s singing is even better. A challenge for him to hear it.

“Oh my god, sing for me,” Pete blurts, skipping the niceties and jumping straight for the demand. He leans forward, a smile cracking the air. “Please, Patrick, I have to hear it.”

“What?” The humming cuts off with the harsh word, Patrick pulling back in the water. “No.”

“No?” Pete frowns. “Oh, come on, it’s not that big of a request. I can already tell your voice is, like, fucking magic so just let me hear a verse or something. Even just a line. Come on, sing for—”

“Pete, I said no!” Patrick shouts, eyes hardening. Pete’s words crash against his teeth, his mouth shutting as Patrick stiffens. “You cannot have that.”

_You cannot have me_

Pete’s thoughts slow and he sees the change in Patrick’s being. The way he bites at his own lips, the way his arms fold protectively around himself.

_You cannot have me_

The first night they spoke, Pete had said Patrick could not have him— could not hear the words Pete refused to say. 

Now, Patrick is asking the same.

_You cannot have me_

But Pete needs to write a book. And Patrick is every missing line.

Without a second thought, Pete peels his shirt off his body.

“Pete?” Patrick exclaims, water splashing sporadically as he pushes back further. “What are you—”

“You don’t like being alone, right?” Pete asks, standing and working on his pants. “If you sing for me, I’ll swim with you. You don’t have to sing a lot, like I said. Just a verse. And then I’ll swim with you for the rest of the night.”

Despite Patrick’s widening eyes— or, perhaps, because of it— he yanks his pants free from his legs and kneels back down to the edge.

“You... You would swim with me?” Patrick swims closer, sounding more scared than he ever has before. He tugs at his bottom lip, glancing up at Pete with water dripping from his lashes. “All night?”

Pete nods sharply, the cool air causing goosebumps to rise on his arms. “All night.” He doesn’t mention sickness or exhaustion, Patrick’s melodic hums still playing on repeat in his mind.

For a second, Patrick smiles, eyes lighting like a shooting star as he loses his breath at the thought. Pete watches the vision play across Patrick’s face, the realization that, for one night, he won’t be alone in these waters. For one night, he can pretend his isolation has come to an end.

For one night.

But that lasts for only a second, reluctance and distress painting over it in a heartbeat.

“Swim with me,” Patrick says to himself. It’s nearly enough to have Pete diving in, the pleading tone like nails across his heart. Patrick’s next words, though, coated in cautious hope, give him pause. “I only have to sing a verse?”

His voice is soft, fearful. Pete should feel horrible.

“Just a verse.” Pete's voice is anything but.

Patrick shuts his eyes. He reaches out, a hand grabbing Pete’s wrist. Pete realizes the danger, realizes Patrick could lash out or pull him in. But he doesn’t move, doesn’t force the merman away.

“Just a verse,” Pete says again, voice as mild as the waves caressing the rocks. “Just one.”

Patrick nods, eyes still shut. Patrick’s grip tightens. He shakes. He takes a breath.

“Get in the water first,” Patrick begs. “I need to know that you will stay.”

“I’m not lying,” Pete says. Still, he lets Patrick lead him in. Patrick doesn’t pull and he doesn’t force like Pete might have expected. He merely moves his arm back towards himself, those starry eyes opening like Pete’s personal brand of bait.

Pete moves forward. And the rocks beneath him disappear.

_Cold. Darkness. Death. Drowning._

A hard knot ties in Pete’s stomach. He’s submerged. He’s drowning. He’s alone. He’s—

Patrick’s hands find Pete’s waist, pulling him above the surface. Pete spits out ocean and breathes in Patrick’s smile as the merman beams. They’re inches from each other, centimeters apart. Patrick’s eyes glow with colors Pete has never seen before. And his teeth, jagged and flawless, glint when he laughs. 

Pete treads water and shivers violently when his feet brush against scales.

“Hello,” Patrick says, his smile finding its way into the word. Pete breathes heavily but smiles back.

“Hi.”

Silence. The friendly kind. The friend shooing everyone else out of a room with a sly smile on their face. The whisper of “good luck” before nothing else exists.

Pete’s skin burns where Patrick touches. His cheeks scorch with the intensity of Patrick’s smile.

Minutes or hours or days pass. And Pete can only stare.

How can such a being exist? And how is it fair that Pete is only finding him now?

Pete licks his lips, dragging saltwater onto his tongue as if it can wet his dried mouth and throat. “You promised me you’d sing.”

Patrick’s smile wavers. He turns to stare at the waves. “I know.”

“Just one verse, right?” Pete tries to sound consoling but the words come across as apologetic. “Patrick, we agreed.”

“I know,” Patrick says, harsher than before. He looks up, cheeks red and eyes unfocused. “I just… I have had no reason to for so long and…and...”

Patrick’s eyes shut and, for a horrible moment, Pete fears he may cry.

He tightens his grip on Pete’s waist. He takes another shuddering breath. He opens his eyes.

And he begins to sing.

He begins to sing.

Though no music accompanies the song, Pete hears every chord and note in his voice. The words of a language Pete’s never heard, never dreamed of hearing, but every sound strikes him in the chest. Every syllable is an emotion plucked from the air and tossed like rocks or luck.

As Patrick sings, something wells in Pete’s chest. Something like tears but so much more powerful. Something like laughter but nowhere near as trivial.

Something like love but for a thing Pete can’t bring himself to name.

As Patrick sings, Pete tries to compose a novel for the voice alone. He tries to transcribe the emotion, the magic, the sound, but finds himself without words.

Where is his wit? His cunning? His cleverness? Where is all he has defined himself as?

Patrick sings, as light as the stars in the sky, and Pete can only create the greatest of cliches.

Love and perfection, magic and music. The words are unlit Christmas lights in his mind.

Patrick sings and Pete can’t speak, can’t write.

For the first time, Pete can only listen and pray for the Sun not to rise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment, please! Or come talk on my Tumblr: folie-aplusieurs.


	5. Thriller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Containing heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please pay attention to tags

_thrill·er_

_noun_

_containing heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety_

 

For the first time in years, Pete takes joy in writing.

For the first time in years, pleasure entwines with each word and passion derives from each sentence. For the first time in years, Pete can’t put down his pen.

For the first time ever, he doesn’t want to.

Patrick’s voice plays on repeat in his head like a soundtrack to the writing scene, the score for the movie this novel undoubtedly will be once published. He breaks every rule, ink staining the side of his hand and the keys of the typewriter punching into his fingertips. Adjectives and purple prose paint the page. Truth masquerading as a lie decorates the paper.

And Patrick’s voice plays on.

Infatuation— this is the word Pete continues coming back to. The intensity causes his heart to race each time he confesses to the story before him. He writes of how it felt to fall into the water with Patrick, how it felt to have those hands gliding so strongly but so softly against his skin. Not one detail is left out— he can’t afford to betray his memories in such a way. Everything but his writing is a blur as he describes the incredible proximity between himself and this being, between his own awed lips and Patrick’s starry smile. Everything is but a stuttered heartbeat, a halted breath, as he pulls pretentious words for the bit about Patrick’s eyes.

Everything is futile compared to the pages upon pages about Patrick’s voice. His singing, his speaking, his laughing, his  _voice._

His voice.

The most impossible piece of him yet.

Pete’s been writing since he left the beach, since Patrick glanced at the promise of morning and peeled away from his hold. Pete’s been writing since he collapsed at his desk, a puddle of water beneath him and the stale feeling of salt upon him.

Pete’s been writing since dawn and, though the sun now rests easily at its zenith, he shows no sign of stopping.

He has to write. He wants to write. His vision fuzzes over and his limbs ache but he needs to write.

One more sentence, he tells himself. One more word and then—

And then there is splashing outside.

Against the rhythm of the waves, against the soothing calm, there is a splash.

Pete’s at his feet without a thought.

Patrick never comes to the surface at day— not when the stars aren’t there to protect him, he claims. So Pete knows it must be children messing around, teenagers sneaking in. Pete knows it can’t be the merman.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t dream.

He doesn’t bother with shoes or closing the door as he hurries outside and onto the beach. The sand under his soles eases his mind even as the waves continue out of sync.

“Patrick?” Pete calls out, letting hope get the best of him. “Patrick?”

He hears the splashing increase and then he sees the frenzy. In the distance, further than the walkway of rocks extends, a storm of white and blue bubbles up to the surface, a struggle that has Pete’s heart in his throat.

He holds his breath. 

It could be anything. It could be anyone. Perhaps there are more mermen and mermaids than Patrick knows of. Perhaps some children really are playing a prank.

Perhaps Pete’s a fool for his fear.

He waits. He holds his breath.

And he hears Patrick scream his name.

“Pete!” The cry cuts through the air for just a moment, just long enough for Pete to start running. “Pete, help!”

The sand soon becomes rock beneath Pete’s feet. The rock soon becomes nothing but air as Pete jumps off the edge and into the cold water beneath. There’s a second of panic, an instant of drowning, but then he kicks and shoves forward. He opens his eyes, accepting the sting, and swims for Patrick. He looks for an olive-green tail, for porcelain skin, for watery eyes assuring him it’s alright.

The monsters, though, are first to greet his vision.

Two of them, gruesomely grotesque, dart around the water like demons, wisps of ghost-white hair sprouting from their skeletal heads and dressing their naked forms. Their lips draw back from their gaping mouths, the needle-like fangs within the same sickly silver as their stick-thin arms and torsos. Below their ribs, tails the shade of blood propel them through the water, twice the length of their torso and littered with sharpened scales and fins. One turns to Pete with empty eyes, eyes so dark they appear to have none at all, and shrieks in a way that would shatter glass.

His instincts tell him to turn away and he nearly does, nearly screams and lets the ocean have him instead of these monstrosities. These are not myths or legends. They are horror stories and nightmares come true.

Pete should leave but he can’t ignore the claws, grey and twisted, extending from shriveled hands to tear at porcelain skin and red-gold hair. He can’t ignore the weapons-- spears and knives-- that appear as bone but glint like warnings when the sun breaks through the waves. He can’t ignore their threat.

He can’t ignore what they’re threatening.

Pete swims closer, cursing the water for pressing against each hurried action, and reaches for Patrick. His hand, his wrist, his shoulder— anything to save him.

Patrick’s eyes are wide as they look at Pete, his mouth parted but no sound escaping. Pete pulls and tightens his grip, not caring about what bruises he may leave.

Patrick is his inspiration, his myth, his friend.

He is his-- and these creatures, whatever they may be, will not take him so easily.

He reaches for Patrick’s hand and nearly cries in relief when he feels Patrick’s fingers wrap around his own.

Pull and swim, he thinks. The rocks-- the ledge--, they aren’t far. If he can get Patrick to the surface, if he can get him away from these beasts …

Pete pulls. Claws tear down Patrick’s back but it’s enough, it’s enough, it’s

Time stops, clenching her fist around this moment-- the same way Pete's heart clenches when Patrick tenses. The same way Pete's heart clenches when he turns to see why.

The same way his heart clenches when he sees the blade embedded in Patrick's side.

The monsters shriek again, laugh and dance in their wordless joy. The sound is worse than before, piercing into Pete’s brain like the needles in their mouths.

But it could never match with the sound that pierces into his heart without warning. It could never match the sound of Patrick’s scream.

Pete fights harder than before, wrapping himself around Patrick as the merman’s tail flaps sporadically. He shoves Patrick towards the beach, kicking and scratching as those creatures follow, as they reach for him next. Pete continues to swim, head light from the lack of oxygen but vision clear from the surplus of Patrick’s pain.

He swims, Patrick in his arms.

The rocks are close. The rocks are near. They can make it. They have to. Pete doesn’t know what he will do once they are at the surface, doesn’t know how long Patrick can last, but he knows he has to try. By the torment painted on the merman’s face, by the desperation to escape, Pete knows he has to try.

It’s when they’re near the surface, when the rocks make themselves known, that he feels something tugging at his neck.

Patrick disappears from his grip as Pete spins, a cry of his own stealing all remaining breath as he finds himself face-to-face with one of the monsters, teeth snapping near his throat as it tugs at the necklace. The Sun charm is caught beneath those horrible claws, those claws stained with Patrick’s blood, and Pete reaches to pull them away.

They already hurt Patrick. They won’t have Pete's luck, too.

Black dots invade his sight as he struggles, the monster laughing than before. The monster tugs at the necklace in full, as if realizing how much it means to Pete. Cruelly, a second hand joins the first and the necklace loosens just enough for Pete's heart to slam against his ribs in alarm.

No.

No, no.

They will not have this. They can’t.

But the second monster is fast approaching, left behind but armed. A knife, like the one they stabbed into Patrick, nears him and Pete has no choice.

He shuts his eyes, moving his fingers to the cord around his neck. Memorizing the coarseness, reminding himself of their memories.

His good luck charm. His protection. His hope.

His Sun.

Pete opens his eyes and lets go of the necklace. With all the strength he has left, he leans back and kicks both his feet into the creature’s chest.

The being flies back with a startled cry. Pete propels forward, caught by Patrick’s waiting arms.

The necklace comes loose and falls deeper into the waves.

Pete's heart aches but there’s no time left to lament.

He turns, taking Patrick into his arms and bursting through the surface with a violent gasp. He lets Patrick go only long enough to drag himself onto the rocks but pulling Patrick is easy, those blue-gold eyes reminding Pete that the stars said he was safe.

His Sun is gone but Pete’s not ready to prove the stars wrong today.

The  _tick-tick_ of his running feet follow him into his house, the ragged breaths of Patrick echoing even louder once inside. Pete’s shock urges him into instinct, taking Patrick to the bathroom and dropping him harshly into the tub. Hands shaking, he gets the water running and bath plugged, thanking every god he knows that Patrick’s small enough to fit.

Patrick, though, doesn’t make it easy as he writhes around, thrashing into the sides of the tub and splashing water everywhere. Cries leave his lips and his eyes remain shut so tightly it must hurt. Pete’s hands jerk above him, his throat a knot as he begs for something to show him what to do.

He looks down to Patrick’s hands, pressed against a wound, and understands.

“Oh, oh,” he says, reaching to the gash with the smallest bit of bile rising to the back of his throat. “Patrick, let me fix that. I have, shit, I have bandages, I think? Gauze or something. Let me bandage that up, you’re gonna bleed to death, you’re—”

“Get it out!” Patrick shrieks, eyes opening and hands shoving Pete’s away. He’s wild, more feral than Pete’s ever seen, struggling against an unknown force. He tosses his head back and screams again, sharp nails tearing paint off the tub as his body flails once more. “Please, get it out!”

“I don’t…” Pete stares helplessly, entire body trembling. He’s never seen Patrick like this, never imagined he would have to. “I don’t know—”

Patrick’s hand finds Pete’s wrist in a white-knuckled grip and pulls back towards the wound, staining Pete’s fingers with his blood. His eyes, unfocused and pained, find Pete’s for a second as he demands through gritted teeth, “Take it out.”

With no other plan, with no other clue as to what he might mean, Pete dips his fingers into Patrick’s cut.

Patrick screams and, deliriously, Pete distracts himself with the relief that he doesn’t have any immediate neighbors.

It feels like hours but can only be seconds that Pete’s fingertips color themselves with the inside of Patrick’s body, blood and gore filling the bath alongside the water. The wound isn’t too large, merely a few inches wide and hardly an inch across, but it is dangerously deep and Pete struggles to find what Patrick means. He didn’t sign up for this, he didn’t mean for this to happen. He wanted to write a book, to cast a merman as a hero. He didn’t want to save his life. He didn’t want to worry about ever watching the merman die.

Just as this thought has his body freezing over, Pete feels what Patrick must mean. Something hard, something out-of-place, something like a bone presses against his nail.

Pete pulls, trying to be delicate but failing miserably as tears stream down Patrick’s cheeks. The object comes free without a fight and Pete glances down to see the tip of that monster’s knife, a few inches of sharpened point and edge. It’s covered with Patrick’s blood but even the light of the bathroom causes it to gleam mockingly.

“What the hel—”

Patrick recoils away, eyes focused but no less tormented as they land on the offending object. His lips curl up and he bares his teeth, pressing himself to the far end of the tub. “ _Get it away from me.”_

It’s not a request or question. It’s a demand that sends chills down Pete’s spine. He doesn’t hesitate to obey, jerking as he tosses the blade out of the room. It lands with a soft sound and Pete can only pray it wasn’t on his bed or desk.

Patrick calms with the creature’s weapon further away, sinking into the water but grimacing with hurt. Pete looks back to him, eyes wide when Patrick groans.

“Right,” he says, glancing down at the wound. “How about I— I’ll— Why don’t you let me fix that up and then we can talk.” Patrick’s eyebrows furrow together and he parts his lips— supposedly in protest— but gives up easily, nodding and shutting his mouth again.

Pete nods back and passes a towel to Patrick. “I need to go find the first aid kit. Keep this on the wound to stop the bleeding.” Patrick does as he says, silent, and Pete swallows thickly, hoping not too much blood has been lost already. Without another word, he leaves the room to find a first aid kit and, hopefully, a website that will tell him how to handle it.

He didn’t sign up for anything like this.

Still, he doesn’t regret a thing as he returns to Patrick minutes later with the first aid kit in hand.

All is silent as he works, though he sees Patrick biting down on his lip to hold back grunts and whines at each action. Pete could call him on it, could tell him it’s okay if he hurts, but his mind is still swimming with everything that’s happened. He focuses instead on bandaging the wound, double-checking each step on the four sites he’s pulled up on his phone. It’s difficult with Patrick’s requirement of staying in the water but, eventually, he’s content with the results. The bleeding has stopped and the wound is covered. With no known doctor to take in a merman, Pete considers it the best he can do.

“Okay, then,” he says, wiping his hands uselessly on his wet jeans. He refuses to think of how it’s Patrick’s blood he’s wiping off. “If you want to tell me what the hell those things were, then—”

He looks to Patrick and halts.

Patrick, eyes shut and breaths soft, covered with bloodied water in the bath. Patrick, wounded and exhausted.

Pete sighs and shuts his own eyes.

He wants answers. He needs them.

But he knows he isn’t owed them. Not yet.

Pete wastes time, standing and cleaning the rest of the bathroom, tossing out the bloodied rags and wiping up the floor. Some water had dripped across the carpet of his bedroom when he’d carried Patrick in but Pete doesn’t dry it, too busy wondering why he brought Patrick into the bath by his bedroom. There are bigger bathrooms in this house. Was it a necessity to place him in the one he’d be closest to?

Pete shakes his head. He’ll drive himself mad with such thoughts. Instead, he stares out the window as if looking hard enough will reveal those nightmares he had faced. His blood chills.

This isn’t an innocent myth anymore. Those creatures had wanted Patrick, had come for him from God knows where. They’d tried taking him, tried hurting him, tried  _killing_ him.

The blade glimmers from the corner of Pete’s room, the corner it had landed in. Against his better judgment, he leaves it be. Touching it, he’s sure, will only make him relive such terrible memories.

He doesn’t want to think of nightmares anymore.

So he goes to the only dream he can find— as confusing and suspicious and unbelievable as it is.

He turns and goes back to the bath. He spreads a dry towel across the floor and sits.

He sits and watches.

He waits for Patrick to wake. 


	6. Melodrama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The largest amount of gratitude to the_chaotic_panda for beta'ing this thing! So much kinder than I deserve tbh. I truly cherish your aid <3

_mel·o·dra·ma_

_  
_ _noun_

  
_a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions_

 

Hungry, vicious devils taunt Pete's mind as he sits, a notepad in his lap and pencil lead on his fingers. Graphite sticks his skin to the page, smudging the words, but he doesn't give himself time to notice. Patrick sleeps before him, red marks on his skin tracing the paths those creature's claws had traveled. His lips deepen the frown that's lasted the entire time he's slept, tempting Pete with more words to write.

But Pete doesn't focus on the merman before him. He writes of the demons he saw, the monsters now in his head.

Creatures from the pits of hell, monsters only his nightmares could concoct. Though the thought of them causes Pete's stomach to turn, he writes each detail. If he can face the way his mind describes it— and his mind has always been his cruelest friend— he can face them should they appear again.

When they appear again.

Pete's hand twitches towards his neck, grabbing nothing but air in the place his charm should be. His lost Sun, his sacrificed luck. A hard knot of fear forms in his throat and he drops his hand to the ground, eyes lifting to glare at Patrick, not for the first time in the past dropped handful of hours.

Pete understands he may not be owed any answers, knows he and Patrick are hardly more than friends. No matter how he writes of him, how he pretends to know the merman, Pete cannot claim access to his mind. Not even saving his life grants him the key to that.

But losing the most crucial piece to his survival might.

Unbidden, those memories rise like a crescent moon. The nurse's kind eyes gazing at Pete's empty ones as he stared out the window, stared at the stars with a bitter wonder over why they wouldn't let him die. The harshness of the hospital sheets as she adjusted them, reminding him in a gentle voice of the pills they wanted him to take, the number of hours they wanted him to sleep. And Pete couldn't respond, couldn't tear his gaze away from the stars spinning like bombs in the sky.

"The sky's too dark," he had said, at last, causing the nurse to jerk her head towards him. He hadn't spoken the entire time he'd been there, lost in thoughts and wondering whether those pills they pumped free took his words with him. But the stars demanded a response and Pete's never turned down a chance to be dramatic. "The stars aren't bright enough."

It should have earned him more pills or, at least, another appointment with the therapist they brought in before. It shouldn't have made sense to anyone because how would that be fair if it didn't make sense to Pete himself?

The nurse hadn't taken time to ponder his words. Instead, she slipped off the necklace hidden beneath her shirt without an ounce of hesitation, smiling softly when Pete looked over at the action.

"Here, then," she'd said, passing it to Pete— warm fingers dancing along his cool palm for the half-second it took for her to press it into his hand—, "have a Sun."

It shouldn't have meant anything but Pete's throat had closed up— the stars disappeared from his sight. The nurse's smile and the Sun in his hands was a sign of something Pete couldn't read into, something he has yet to describe in any of his books. It felt like hope or peace of mind, a pining promise or a plea for him to live. When he'd fastened it around his neck, he'd accepted the charm as all.

And, now. Now that promise, that hope, that one symbol of his survival is buried beneath waves darker than his thoughts, stolen by a creature more gruesome than any nightmare he's created. His hope has been stolen and those creatures aren't here to take the blame.

The only being here for that wrath is the one swaddled in blood-tinted water and caught in Pete's curious gaze.

So, he writes. Not of the handsome merman he had encountered some weeks ago. Not of the beauty of his voice or the grace of his smile.

He writes of the memento this merman has caused him to lose.

He writes of the monsters men may find in the sea.

~

Hours pass and Pete has neither the words nor the patience to ask for more. His notebook lingers in his lap— abandoned but not forgotten— and his pencil has rolled somewhere beneath the towels. Pete's eyes remain on Patrick. The stars, surely, must have risen by now. Patrick is certain to do the same.

Patrick, framed by light reflecting in the water around him, shifts in his sleep, a worried sigh escaping his lips. Pete echoes the sound and rests his head in his hands.

Sleep, cruel and cold as ever, begs him to slip.

It's been calling to him since he tossed his pencil to the side, whispering his name since he shut the notebook. Of all the nights for his insomnia to fade away, of all the hours for his exhaustion to return. 

Stay awake.

Stay awake for-- 

_Creatures of the dark and nightmares of the waves circle through his head, appearing behind his eyelids as they finally flutter shut. Shapes of silver and white, red and black, roam without a sound between his thoughts, peering at him in a confusion only he has the right to. Slow like spinning stars, they swim. Distant with empty eyes, they wait. Ambiguous shapes in a crystal ball, not daring to grin because doing so would give too much of the future away._

_"Bring him." The voice in Pete's mind is not his own, is not one he's heard before. "Bring him."_

_Pete tries to speak but his lips won't part. He attempts to wake— to open his eyes, to return to a reality he recognizes— but his thoughts remain muddied with mermonsters._

_Seademons. Mermonsters. Nightmares._

_"Bring him."_

_The voice distorts in Pete's mind like someone balancing a pebble on their tongue. He shakes his head, the smallest of movements, and the Mermonsters in his mind turn, eyes as blank as before._

_They multiply in the thoughts, the dreams, the nightmares of his own, swimming in circles— never leaving but always appearing. A mass, a hoard._

_An army._

_Pete's heart pounds. His mouth goes dry._

_The voice continues and, Pete realizes, it is not one but many. Dozens, hundreds... All of these creatures crying out in one demanding roar._

_"Bring him to us!"_

Pete opens his eyes and falls back with a shout.

Snippets of horror mix with the sound of Pete's own breaths, of his pulse racing through his ears, and through it all, unimpeded, the sound of Patrick's frantic thrashing in the bath.

Fears forgotten, Pete pushes to his knees, leaning over the side as Patrick dips in and out of the water, gills opening and shutting in the time it takes for the merman to cry out. Claws rake through the bath, Patrick's head tossed back and throat exposed as endless whimpers escape. No words, no clue as to what's causing this outburst. Pete's eyes scan across Patrick's body, taking in the patternless waving of his tail, hitting the faucet and sides of the tub with a force that has Pete wondering how strong— or fragile— Patrick's bones are, and which will shatter first should he continue. The tail slams into the water as Patrick cries out again, Pete's eyes snapping up to the sound— to Patrick's pained expression.

 _Oh_ , Pete thinks, turning to look at the wound on Patrick's side. It rests above the tail, a bit above where a human's hipbone would be. It's still secure in its bandages but Pete doesn't know Patrick's pain tolerance, doesn't know a damned thing about what he was stabbed with in the first place. For all Pete knows, Patrick's been poisoned or harmed further than Pete cares to comprehend. Somehow, the thought sticks Pete's agitation in his throat.

"Hey," he says, intent on waking Patrick and finding what's wrong. He reaches into the bath, wary of the flailing hands. "Hey..."

His fingers barely skim Patrick's shoulder but it's enough for the merman's eyes to fly open as he shoves himself away from Pete, another scream escaping. 

"Patrick!" Pete shouts, swearing as Patrick's eyes dart around the room, lost and panicked. "Patrick, come on, you're safe here, remember?"

Seconds, minutes. It takes a lifetime for Patrick's screaming to stop. It takes longer for his eyes to focus.

When the silence begins to grow unbearable, interrupted only by Patrick's attempts to calm his breaths, Pete steps into it with as much noise as he dares. "Better now?"

Patrick doesn't respond, lying back in the water and nodding. He stares at the ceiling but Pete stares only at him, his pulse playing every frenzied tune it knows.

Patrick adjusts with a sort of irritation in his actions, as well as the wrinkle of his nose. He pushes himself to a sitting position, balanced awkwardly by his tail. Gills shut against his neck, his fingers tapping water on them with a wistful sigh. When he looks to Pete, his pupils are smaller in the brighter artificial light.

"Don't move," Pete says, an instinct when Patrick tries to turn his body. Pete's eyes glance at the bandage, his heart in his throat as he thinks back to how little gauze and tape and antibiotic cream he has left. Not enough if Patrick tears it open again. Not enough if Patrick goes free and those things attack. Pete swallows down the feeling, shaking his head and speaking with more force. "Don't move."

Somehow, Patrick obeys.

A second passes, a second of Pete biting his lip and Patrick staring at him with eyes that exchange innocence with suspicion each passing breath. A second passes, a second filled with questions Pete doesn't know how to ask.

Finally, he leans back on his heels and speaks. "Patrick, what were—"

"Do not say anything." Suspicion hard as the blade that had been embedded in his skin takes full reign in Patrick's features, eyes narrowing and body tensing. His words ride a cruel air into Pete's mind, a command Pete's shocked into following. Patrick glances him up and down as if assessing a threat. As if Pete wasn't the one he called out for, wasn't the one who brought him here and patched him up. Patrick's eyes soften while Pete's heart hardens. "No questions. This does not concern you."

A dozen emotions race through Pete's mind, a heartbeat preparing for a race. A dozen things to shout or scream. Patrick is here because of him. Patrick is safe because of him. Patrick is  _alive_.

"You realize that if I acted like none of it concerned me, you would be dead now, right?" Pete snaps, leaning forward again and bracing his arms on the edge of the tub to glare properly. "You want to keep some secrets, fine. Be as mythical or mystical as you want. Talk about your fucking stars and missing family. I don't care. But the second monsters start appearing in my backyard and mermen start bleeding in my bathtub, I'm gonna want some answers. I saved your life out there, Patrick. Not the stars or whatever shit you believe in. And I lost... I lost something pretty fucking special while doing it. You owe me answers. You owe me that much." Pete's fuming by the time he's done but his expression— eyes narrowed, breaths heavy, cheeks flushed— has nothing on Patrick's.

Patrick, with the fangs and the claws and the tail. Patrick, with the mystery and the gold and the magic in his existence.

Patrick, with every trait of a predator.

"I owe you nothing," he says, voice as cold as the ice in his eyes. He turns with a flinch, a hand hesitating to rest on the bandages. "Take me back to the ocean. I will not stay here with you. I want to go back."

"You sound like a kid," Pete laughs, derisive and delirious. "Back, right. Straight back to the mermonsters who were trying to abduct you."

It's Patrick's turn to laugh as his hand finally falls to the wound, gripping bandages as he watches his tail, swaying in the water as if it has any right to appear so calm. "Abduction! As if they would be so kind to keep me alive for something such as that."

Pete's stomach twists in an ugly way.

"All the more reason to jump right back in," he scoffs, ignoring the goosebumps appearing on his arms. "Why do they want you, anyway? Does it have to do with why you never leave the beach? Why you're so obsessed with befriending everyone but your own kind?" Patrick stays silent and Pete pushes, body shaking with the words building in his throat, forming like foam in his mouth. "Maybe they're the true heroes of this story. Maybe I should have left you there. How do I know you're innocent in all this? For all I know, you hurt them first. Attacked, cursed, killed their families. Whatever!" Patrick sucks in a harsh breath at Pete's words, choking as his gills spasm at the action.

Still, he stays silent, mouth shut and eyes staring straight ahead.

"Well?" Pete continues. "Aren't you going to tell me I'm wrong? Tell me they're not some poor unfortunate souls you fucking... fucking cursed or whatever? Tell me they have no right to come kill you, no right to beg for your blood? Tell me, Patrick! Tell me why they want you!"

Patrick parts his lips but not to speak. No, Pete's answer is the slightest glimmer of Patrick's teeth.

At first, at least.

A moment later, while Pete's picking out the prettiest insults to use, Patrick catches him off-guard with a laugh.

It's not a laugh Pete's heard from the merman before, not one he's ever wanted to. It's a choking sound, the sound of drowning. It drags across Pete's skin with nails of its own, attacking but refusing to break the skin. It's the sound of a grave collapsing in on itself, of a soul tearing free from a body.

As Patrick turns to Pete with nothing in his eyes, it's the sound of a murder beneath the waves.

"You are the storyteller," Patrick says, words plucked from the air in a naturally unnatural way. Emotion rests behind each syllable, held back only by Patrick's controlled breaths. "So, you tell me a tale first. Tell me what brings you here, of the way you hate the people who love you. Tell me how you left behind your world, by your own choice, and refuse to look back. Tell me how you forgot your friends and family because you could not stand them a second longer. Tell me why you prefer to be alone when I would give anything to be with my own people. Tell me that,  _storyteller_ , and maybe I'll exchange my words for yours."

A thunderstorm of rage and fury brims in Pete's mind, dripping silence into his lungs and speechlessness down his throat. Raindrops of things he should say, things he wants to say, burn his brain, sizzling where they land. What right does Patrick have to say these things? What right to show such hostility? What right? What right?

"What right?" Patrick says and it is then Pete realizes his own voice had been cracking through the air, lightning thoughts of insulted demands. Patrick withstands it like a being used to storms. "What right have you to demand my life story? You barely know your own."

Thunder. Lightning. A storm he has only felt beneath his own hands, in ink and paper and pills.

In the time it takes for the rain to course through Pete's veins, he's already slamming the door in time with the crashing of his thoughts.


	7. Legend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A story which usually includes an element of truth, or is based on historical facts, but with 'mythical qualities'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much love to the_chaotic_panda for beta'ing <3
> 
> And a longer chapter here for all the wonderful people who keep reading this tale. I hope you enjoy!

 

_leg·end_

_noun_

_a story which_ _usually includes an element of truth, or is based on historical facts, but with 'mythical qualities'._

The light of the moon feels brighter when Pete’s seeing it from his bed. He’s never noticed before how easy it can be to dull the celestial object, to ignore it, to trade the reality for the reflection in a merman’s eyes. Though he had only spent a few nights on the rocks, it feels strange to be looking at the night sky from the safety of his room. The moon, framed by the stars, gleams in ways Pete had never noticed it do so before. Shining through the window, amplified by the glass, it grins. The distortion appears as an arrogant yet fragile bird.

The thought comes to Pete in the time between thinking and dreaming, the place between falling asleep and sleeping itself. His limbs, heavy and feeling nonexistent beneath a thin blanket, twitch in time to the creatures' voices in his head.

Pete shuts his eyes. They’re still there.

They haven’t changed their tones, haven’t separated into voices Pete might want to understand. The words, though, have shifted. They’ve become one endless cycle of repetitions.

_Sleep. Dream. This is sleep. This is a dream._

It still doesn’t sound properly human but the continuous cadence is enough for Pete to accept it. So long as they stay calm, so long as they do not cry out in voices of thunder as before, Pete can put off his concern.

_Sleep._

_Dream._

_This is sleep._

_This is a dream._

_Dream._

_Dream._

_Dream_ ing. Pete’s eyes open to the grey light of the moon in the bedroom, casting impossible shadows and whispers along the wall. His thoughts and body are sluggish as he pushes himself into a sitting position. Everything is a shade fainter than when he had closed his eyes. Everything is a bit off, like the furniture has all been moved an inch to the left. The voices, too, have stopped, and Pete shoves his blankets away.

Certainly, he must be dreaming.

Pete rises from bed, eyes on the moon as it flies as no bird flies. Steadfast and hovering, eyes only on him.

Pete's feet land on the floor with a dull thud, his desire to explore the dreamworld growing at the sound. He turns with movements like a video game character, someone with no control of their own. He feels at the mercy of the dream he’s awoken into. He feels like Alice through the looking glass, wondering which side she’s on. He feels like Wendy gazing at the second star to the right, wondering if she can really fly.

Slowly, Pete makes his way to the desk, the soft sound of his own confident footsteps guiding him towards it.

Without time for blinking, he rummages through the pens and pencils he’d lined up before, tapping the pad of his finger against the tips and admiring the points. An alien feeling overcomes him as he lifts a newer pen, one still bleeding too much ink, and tests the tip. Unsatisfied with the result, he tosses it to the floor. It bounces once, twice, each sound twins, before landing on something with a more foreign sound.

It's something that has Pete turning his head with a happy noise, a noise like an infant seeing its mother. It’s alien on Pete’s lips but this is a dream, isn’t it? There’s nothing wrong with strange sounds.

And there’s nothing wrong with feeling so pleased with the sight of a blade.

 _A Sunset Blade_ , his mind supplies as he walks towards the piece of knife he dug from Patrick’s body earlier.  _Made from the bone of our warriors and blessed by the moon. The only weapon strong enough to destroy a—_

Pete lifts the Sunset Blade before his thoughts become too complicated, a thrill rushing through his veins at the contact. He didn’t notice before but something cruel surges through the weapon in his hand. It’s not complete, barely the tip of a knife, and Pete obsesses over how strong the full blade must be, how powerful he would feel if he held it.

This is a dream, yes? So why shouldn’t he be able to become a hero with this, slaying dragons and villains like a knight? Why shouldn’t he vanquish all foes, one by one, with just one blow from this Sunset Blade? He could be great with this, he should be great with—

The softest of splashes echoes in the bathroom. Before he understands the rush of purpose in his blood, Pete stands and makes his way towards it, the blade still held tightly in his hand. He knows what’s in the bathroom, in the bathtub, but he still struggles to control his excitement. In a dream, any manner of being could be in there.

And it is a dream, right?

As Pete opens the door, a piece of his mind isn’t so sure.

It’s just a piece, though, a dented portion of a puzzle that’s easy to ignore in the larger dream in Pete’s mind.

Because it is a dream, right?

The door opens with a click.

Patrick’s leaning over the side of the tub when Pete walks in, resting his head on his arms and flicking his tail in bored back-and-forth motions. Pete’s teeth clench at the sound of the water he displaces with each movement. Shouldn’t his kind be asleep by now?

No matter. Pete stalks forward, the blade held in a bloodless grip as he continues, waiting for Patrick to notice him. When the merman does look up, it’s with a surprised grin, a childlike smile.

“I was hoping you would not ignore me,” he says, looking up at Pete the way he always did when they are out on the rocks. “I know we fought but I appreciate that you did not forget I like speaking with you at night. That was nice of you, Pete.”

His smile grows. He pushes himself up higher.

Then he sees the blade in Pete’s hand and his smile falls.

“Pete?” He asks with worry and concern swimming in his eyes as gracefully as he does in the ocean. “Pete, what are you doing with that?”

Pete can’t bring himself to answer, lowering to his knees at the bath’s side. His mouth feels clamped shut like the door to a Trojan Horse, promising nothing but vileness and cruelty inside. No, he has to keep the curl of Patrick’s smile— hidden and waiting— in the corner of his lips. He has to play along with the dreams for just a moment longer.

As he watches Patrick, time slows and Pete allows himself to notice things he’s never cared to see before. This close, the gold in Patrick’s eyes is just a ring around the middle, a band of something unreal. Scales, a lighter green than the rest, dot up the sides of his torso, unsure of whether or not to consume him entirely. And the rise and fall of his chest, the breath filling the air, the immobility of his gills… It’s all too human for Pete’s liking.

Patrick reaches for Pete, though, and then he looks like only a monster.

It takes a blink, a recoil, a blurred moment of confusion where Patrick’s teeth extend into fangs and the pupil takes over his entire eye. Before Pete, Patrick’s skin shifts to a deathly grey and his words— his choked off “Pete, please” — is nothing more than a screech.

The arm that had been extended towards him lashes out so Pete does the same.

He throws himself towards the monster, the being where Patrick was, and refuses to hold back, wielding the Sunset Blade the way he’d imagined he could. Water explodes around him, wetting everything and blurring his vision further but he finds no reason to care. He’s as feral as the monster before him, as wild as the blade makes him feel.

It’s a struggle neither side is willing to lose, Pete halfway in the bath as the creature holds onto his wrist, holding the knife far away as possible. Sharp teeth snap towards Pete, never close enough to wound but more than enough to cause his heart to pound. He needs to bring the blade into this creature’s heart, into it’s skin. He needs to end this nightmare and return to the dream state he’d accepted this to be.

He’s so lost in his own self-hypnosis, his own desperation to return to serenity, the mermonster takes the upper hand, ripping the blade from Pete with a howl and tossing it to the floor.

Pete sees no reason to end his fight. Knocking shampoo bottles and soap bars to the floor, Pete reaches for the monster’s throat with the intent to kill.

He’s nearly there, so nearly there. His fingers brush the creature’s skin.

Then his ears fill with a word that isn’t English, isn’t human, isn’t Patrick or monster or him.

The water on his skin scalds.

Pete pulls back with a shout, all haze and fog clearing from his thoughts and sight. He lands on his back on the floor outside the tub, frantically wiping away the water— the water that should have been cooled by now, the water that should have been lukewarm at most— from where it’s burning into his skin. It takes too long, far too long, to remove it all, to recover from the pain and ease the wounds. Red marks like kisses line his arms and hands. Black dots like flies flutter in his vision. He blinks and sits back up, shaking as he does so.

When he looks towards the bath, looks for the monster, he sees only Patrick.

Patrick, whose eyes blaze a scorching amber shade.

Patrick, who’s unaffected and unbothered by the boiling water surrounding him.

Their eyes meet and Pete wonders if he had the metaphor wrong when he’d seen himself as a Trojan horse. Is this how it feels to witness a blessing, a beautiful gift from the universe, become a nightmare? Is this what it means to fear?

Slowly, the gold melts from Patrick’s eyes and the water lowers to a simmer, still steaming as Patrick stares mercilessly at Pete. He settles down into the bath, blinking and returning the blue shade to his gaze.

It’s nothing Pete’s mind could ever concoct. It’s nothing he’s ever imagined before.

It’s nothing like the dream he thought he was in.

His stomach turns as the past events catch up to him, the compelling thoughts of murder he had as he found the blade and brought it here to kill a monster he so vividly saw. That wasn’t a dream. It couldn’t be.

No. It wasn’t a dream. It was a possession, a hypnotism, another being in his mind controlling his thoughts and sight. A being that wanted him to see Patrick as a monster, a being that wanted him to…

Pete shuts his eyes and swallows down the sick feeling crawling up his throat. Patrick’s eyes still rest heavily on him but Pete can’t bring himself to speak. Not now, perhaps not ever.

Water shifts and Pete opens his eyes in time to see Patrick move, a lifting of the merman's hand that has Pete jerking to be sure he’s not attacking or defending.

Instead, he watches as Patrick wipes away a thin line of blood from his cheek. Pete should shut his eyes before he throws up, before the red shade imprints itself on the back of his eyes and haunts his dreams.

The blood, though, is as hypnotizing as those monsters had been in his mind and the voice he hears is all his own.

 _You hurt him_ , it whispers.  _You hurt Patrick_.  _Magical, mythical Patrick. Your only friend here, your best friend here._

_And you hurt him_

A cut across Patrick’s right cheekbone now drips blood into the water, a result of Pete’s inability to keep his mind safe from those demons. Patrick swipes his thumb across the injury one last time with barely a wince, eyes darting from Pete to stare at the wall. He swallows, gills twitching from the action, and then nods to himself.

“Take me back to the ocean,” he say— no, demands. “Now.”

“Tell me what’s going on,” Pete’s voice is a demand of its own, albeit shakier and less forceful. “Tell me what that was. Now.”

Patrick shuts his eyes, clenching his jaw as his muscles tense. “It is too dangerous to tell you.”

“Dangerous? Then what the hell do you call that?” Pete tosses himself forward until he’s on his knees once more, at the side of the tub with whatever words his mind can compose. “Something got into my head and you want to pretend you can’t tell me why? I know it was one of those monsters, I know it has to do with you. So tell me what it is because, goddamnit, I’m not going to go through with the belief that I might be crazy! I’m not going to let you make me believe I might be insane! They can’t do that to me. You can’t do that to me.  _No one can tell me I’m crazy again._ ”

The words are hopelessness masked as desperation, tearing from Pete’s throat with the force of a sob, the force of the terrified tears on his bottom lashes. Pete refuses to wipe them away, refuses to admit they’re there. This scene is too familiar, too comfortable for his liking. Pete’s skin crawls and, for a moment, he’s back in a therapist’s office, on his feet and screaming that no one’s allowed to have a claim on his mind.

But, unlike any therapist, Patrick remains cold. All Pete can do is shake, red-hot anger burning on his vision but his lips only forming trembling words of fear.

“Just tell me what they did to me. Tell me how they got into my head,” he begs, hating that he’s doing so. “I promise, if you answer this question, I won’t ask another. That’s a fair trade, right?”

A soft-silver glow seems to filter into the room from the opened door, fighting with the manmade lights, a darkened quartz reflection on the side of Patrick’s eyes as he opens them. Outside, through the thickness of the moon’s light and the night’s darkness, Pete hears the splashing of creatures too terrible to exist.

“A trade,” Patrick says, at last, each word chosen carefully. “Do you know, it was your trade for my singing that led them here?”

Heat rushes into Pete’s cheeks but it’s not enough to make him apologize or turn away, not enough to distract his horror.

He rests his head on the edge of the bath, eyes shut. “Just… Please.”

Patrick won’t answer, Pete knows he won’t. The silence that follows is expected.

The soft touch of fingers against his cheek, however, isn't.

Pete looks back up, eyes widening once more as Patrick pulls away with a similar expression.

An exchange of breaths. A shared moment of fear, neither understanding why the other feels such a way.

Without reason or prompting, Pete nods. It’s a simple dip of his head, a sign that could be reverence or acceptance. It’s enough for Patrick’s muscles to ease, for him to relax and force his lips into an awkward curve of reassurance. When he reaches out this time, Pete doesn’t flinch.

Gentle fingers brush across Pete’s temple. Water drips down his cheek, unforgivingly lukewarm and nothing like the brisk cool of the ocean.  
  
“The moon,” Patrick says, voice softer than the subtle worry in his eyes. “They are using the moon.”

Pete bites back frustration, the emotion swelling in his chest as he chooses instead to focus on Patrick’s touch.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he says, trying to sound calm but aware that he’s failing. “Fucking… Make it make sense.”

Maybe he’s asking too much. Maybe he will wake up and discover these past few weeks have been nothing more than a delusion— the only theory that makes sense.

“It is hard to explain,” Patrick says. Pete presses a white-knuckled grip into the edge of the bath.

“Try.”

Patrick sighs, pulling his hand away and dipping it back into the water. Pete’s sigh at the loss is covered by the harsh breath Patrick sucks in.

“The monsters… They can do things. I suppose you would call it a power. For us, they were just abilities. Things we accepted. My people had our own abilities so it was fair. For a while.” Patrick pauses as if doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to explain the simplest pieces of his culture to a panicking human. “But our gifts only came from the stars. They have the power of the moon.”

“Skip the history,” Pete interrupts, his grip on the side of the bath tightening enough for his fingers to ache. “Just tell me what it has to do with… with what happened.”

Patrick bites down softly on his lip, the hesitant expression changing as he runs fingers through his dripping hair. Pete struggles to read what emotion now rests on his face. Hopelessness? Anger? Fear?

God, no, not fear. Anything but that.

“The moon shines down on the water all night and, when the monsters are lucky, it is there at day, as well. It is charged with their essence.” The words cast a foreboding shadow that collapses on Pete’s shoulders, a weight like the one in his mind. “When you jumped in to… to save me, water collected on your skin. The salt dried in your hair and on your lips. It gave them an opening, a crack between water and sand, your mind and theirs. It means they can affect your thoughts, send messages and visions. And, if you are tired or not paying attention, even your actions are compromisable. Which means…” Patrick trails off, suddenly sounding unsure.

Pete looks back to the blade on the ground, tossed aside but unforgotten. Patrick’s unfinished sentence lingers in the air, waiting for his response.

“It means that I can hurt you.”

A giant’s hand, unseen and unyielding, presses down on Pete’s chest as he says the words, horrible words that leave no breath in his lungs.

Patrick, though, it seems, has more than enough for the both of them.

“So I cannot tell you the truth,” he says with a shaking sigh. “The monsters can hear what you hear. They are blind outside of the water, sensitive to light, but their hearing is exceptional. And, now, through you, they can listen in to whatever I say. So I can say nothing.”

Nothing. The same amount of this entire situation that Pete understands— nothing.

He doesn’t understand-- doesn’t  _want_  to understand-- what it is Patrick can’t say. He doesn’t want to imagine the secrets lingering atop his tongue, hiding behind his lips. He doesn’t want to focus on the buzzing between his ears, the muted roar. He doesn’t want to know what they might hear.

But, with the silence, the buzzing only grows and Pete’s not sure what’s mermonster and what’s the insanity of static.

“Oh.” Patrick shatters the stillness he had created, laughing to himself and raising his hands to his eyes. He holds them there a second, palms flat against his face as his shoulders shudder softly. “I do not like being out of the water when this happens. Water will wash it away. I do not like showing how I feel.”

“What—”

“It was a lie,” Patrick says, spitting out the words as if he may regret them. He breathes deeply, his chest rising and falling in unstable but controlled movements, face still covered by his hands. “I mean, yes, it was the truth. They can hear but the information would all be secrets they already know. I have nothing new to say to them.”

Pete blinks, growing cold at Patrick’s confession. “Then, why—”

Patrick cuts him off again, pressing his hands harder against his face as if it can somehow make him disappear. Still, behind the pale expanse of his hands and wrists, Pete can see the red blotches forming on his cheeks. “Because I do not wish for you to hate me. You saved me and protected me and you are the closest friend I have had in a long time. I do not want to lose that over something I cannot control.”

An unsettling feeling takes hold within Pete, claws and fangs prodding at his guts. A dozen needles and a hundred whispers fill the air, all imaginary but no less disturbing as Pete processes Patrick’s words.

Pete’s a writer and he needed a story. He didn’t need this.

“I can’t promise I won’t freak out,” he says, words tasted and tested before leaving his lips. They rattle like homes in a storm as they enter the air, shaking and shuddering from the earthquake of his own emotions. “But I can promise I’ll try to understand.”

Patrick’s next sound— a broken laugh, a scratched record of the joy he’s expressed so many times before— lights Pete’s nerves on fire and, for a horrible second, he’s afraid Patrick may be crying.

“The last man who promised me that… A human I foolishly thought I could love and be loved by… He promised the same thing.” Patrick pauses, rubbing his hands across his eyes. His voice shrinks with proceeding word, smaller than the hints of fear he’s shown all night. “And then he called me a monster and a liar. He left. Abandoned me. There are many things I can survive but abandonment… loneliness… I cannot go through that again.”

A blade twists in Pete’s heart at the merman’s words and he reaches out, unthinking, as if his touch will help this pain in any way. Before he makes contact, though, Patrick’s hands fall into the water and his eyes, dry but red-rimmed, meet Pete’s.

“And it hurts to talk about. All of it hurts,” he says. His eyes pierce a hole in Pete’s gravity, flipping his stomach and stealing his reality as they tear through him with an age and pain Pete’s never seen before. “If I had the choice, I would never remember what those monsters did. For years, for nearly twenty years, I have fought to forget everything that came before my time at this beach. And I know I have to tell you but  _it hurts_. It… It… Will it ever stop hurting?”

_I wish I could tell you it does. But, no, pain never stops._

Pete’s words dry in his throat, his own question from years ago repeated back at him. He won’t destroy Patrick’s hope, the optimism Pete was so lucky to see before. A pain radiates from his chest, spreading through his body with each pound of his heart and, he imagines, he aches nearly as much as Patrick appears to.

Somehow, Pete finds himself reaching once more, succeeding and surprising himself with the merman’s hand in his own. Their fingers link together, puzzle pieces, and Pete fights to find words to say. He’s a writer, he should have something to make this all better.

But the only words he has are obvious truths Pete feels he shouldn’t have to say. “You don’t need to tell me anything.”

“No.” Patrick shakes his head, a guilty relief pressing into Pete’s mind at the action. To make up for it, his grip on Patrick’s hand becomes a caress. “You saved my life. I owe you this.”

He pulls his hand from Pete’s. He shuts his eyes and turns away. Pete finds no reason to argue with either action.

“Alright,” Patrick says, hiding his shaking hands in the water. “Ask me. Ask me the same thing you did before.”

It’s a script Pete no longer wishes to read, a line he has no desire to say. If such a question, if such a thought, can tear Patrick apart so easily, why should he ask?

Because he’s a writer in need of a story and, this time, Patrick’s permission is clear.

Staring at Patrick, staring at his scales and skin and closed eyes, Pete gives in.

“Why do those creatures want you dead?”

A merman’s breath fills the air. Patrick’s lips tremble.

His words are nothing but a whisper.

“They want me dead because I am the last siren.”


	8. Folklore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love to the_chaotic_panda for beta'ing

 

_folklore_

_noun_

_the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth_

_~_

_“They want me dead because I am the last siren.”_

_The merman— No, the creature’s face, the siren’s face was bloodless as he spoke. I had written him as a predator before but never had he proven it in such a way._

_The words barely allowed themselves time to sink into my being as he opened his eyes, turning and glaring as if he, too, could hear the chorus of monsters crescendo in my mind. They listened to every word, hanging on like a fish on a hook._

_Here comes the interesting part._

_“Those monsters you hear want me dead because I am the last siren and the crown they want belongs to me,” he said, each word a loaded gun handed over for me to clean. Each syllable an imaginary shot through the monsters’ cries._

_Can you imagine, a siren prince in hiding, somehow arriving before someone as simple as me? An heir to a crown taking the time to smile at an heir to misfortune? He was royalty trapped in a runaway’s body and I had always been a sad soul trapped in a happy one. If the stars this siren prayed to consumed me, would I shine as bright as him?_

_For the shortest instant, I believed in all this. I believed in a beautiful story about a hero sent on a life-changing journey. I imagined a tale of curses driving him from home. Sleeping Beauty’s lore spoke of a princess hidden in the woods, hiding from an eternal sleep. Even Snow White escaped wickedness with serenity on her face._

_I wanted to believe this siren was the same as them._

_I wanted this story to be beautiful._

_But, though his eyes shine and his tail burns a brilliant shade, this story is not beautiful._

_It’s not an innocent adventure or a fairytale to pass down. It’s not a myth or legend or fable._

_It’s a horror story. It’s a nightmare._

_It’s the most realistic story I’ll ever write._

_~_

The water’s grown cold by the time Patrick’s prepared to speak, the siren’s eyes on Pete’s notepad with a wary understanding of what’s being written.

“You hesitated to tell me your story yet you rush to write mine?” Patrick scoffs, though the sound shakes. “Just like a human.”

Pete bites back a retort, all too aware he lacks the knowledge necessary to properly insult a  _siren_. Instead, he spins the pencil in his hand and glances up. “You said you wanted to tell someone. It’s not my fault your confidante is a writer. Besides, you said you liked storytellers. This is what a storyteller does.”

Patrick huffs a breath and shakes his head, his hair nearly dry from his time out of the water. For a moment, Pete wonders if he should worry about how long Patrick’s been above the surface.

And then he remembers.  _Siren_.

Siren. A mythical being meant to lure sailors and men to their death, beings with voices like magic and beauty like gods.

Siren. If mermaids were gifts to the world, then every legend paints sirens as a curse.

Pete swallows, backing away from Patrick in small movements. Movements at which the siren still narrows his eyes, pale cheeks flushing softly at the mistrust.

Before Pete can apologize, Patrick turns his gaze from him once more.

“You should first know that everything your people have decided on merfolk is wrong. Mermaids and mermen…  _They_ are the monsters. Of course, like all monsters, they started out as friends. They appeared like sirens but were different in their beliefs and religions. We found blessing in music while they practiced the magic of spells and potions. We worshipped the stars; they prayed to the moon. Simple differences,” Patrick says. “We did not realize we could not trust them until we learned what they were becoming: humans. Praying to the moon for legs and the knowledge of your kind. They had been doing it for centuries, in secret. They were the ones to spread rumors of sirens and stories of mermaids. In my father’s lifetime, my father’s rule, they learned of war and power, corrupted by things we have never witnessed before in the ocean.”

Patrick pauses, the sound of Pete’s pencil scratching over paper taking the place of his words.

Pete writes, his head down towards the notebook because he’s afraid of what he’ll see if he looks into Patrick’s eyes. Will he find lies and more secrets? Or will he find a truth too terrible to hear? Fear and curiosity sit as bookends, keeping him in place and keeping words trapped in his throat.

When Patrick begins again, it’s in time to the wavering of Pete’s breaths.

“The moon is a siren’s enemy, we learned. And, when the merfolk returned with human weapons and a desire to rule over the seas as the sirens do— as the sirens have the  _right_ to do, a right bestowed by the stars and sun— my father’s army fought them back. He was one of the strongest sirens, supposedly, and he banished the merfolk into the darkest parts of the sea, where the lack of moon turned them to those monsters you saw,” Patrick explains. “They were guarded but… but not well enough. They waited and they trained and they—”

Again, Patrick stops but with a click in his throat, a promise that the story he’s telling— the story Pete’s writing— can only get worse.

“I was just a child,” he says, each word more cautious than the last. “I was young, barely big enough for my fins when they broke free. Before, they craved power and control. This time, all they sought was revenge. My father’s home— my family’s palace— was the first place they struck.”

“They made it all the way to the palace?” Pete interrupts, looking up quick enough to dislodge the voices— voice like serpents, coiling in satisfaction at Patrick’s words— from their place. It lasts only a few seconds before they return, gloating even though the prince—  _prince_ — can’t hear them. “How did they—”

“With the Sunset Blade. A weapon they forged and fuelled with the aid of the moon. The same way you are cursed by letting the water dry on your skin, that blade— a blade made of merfolk bone, thus giving it the very essence of hate and death— was cursed by soaking in an ocean kissed by the moon’s light.” Patrick laughs, a terribly dry noise, and nods towards the blade forgotten on the ground away from Pete. “That is a piece of one. And I am lucky it is just a piece. That would take days to affect me the way a full blade would.” He stops again, emotion falling from his face like blood wiped away from a wound, a wound like the one Patrick rests his hand over as he speaks.

Pete clears his throat, tapping the tip of the pencil onto the paper. “Affect you?”

Patrick blinks and nods sharply, torn from thoughts Pete hardly wishes to see. “It is called a Sunset Blade because it drains the blessing of the stars and sun from us, from the sirens. I am sure… I am sure you have already ascertained that si— we— that  _I_ have abilities? Powers?”

 _Eyes as red-gold as his hair and water burning around him, scalding but not leaving a mark. Anger and fury lashing out like storms and Pete’s skin aches at the memory_.

Pete scoffs, looking back down to his paper. “Yeah, the power of third-degree burns.”

To his surprise, Patrick laughs. It’s a soft sound, still filled with caution, but it eases Pete’s muscles all the same.

“That, and others,” Patrick says, tilting his head to the side. “It starts with that, the magic we were blessed with. Stabbing, I suppose, hastens the effect but even prolonged contact can destroy everything that makes a siren a siren. It steals our voices and cuts our lifespan to a handful of years, even less than the average human’s.”

“That’s why you were so intent on getting the shard out,” Pete says, growing cold as he recalls Patrick’s terror, the way he screamed for Pete to free him from it. “It would have made you like the merfolk.”

“It would have made me like the humans,” Patrick snaps, drawing Pete’s attention back to him. The siren doesn’t meet his gaze, his eyes straight ahead with cheeks burning a fiery shade as he swallows repeatedly, blinking back tears Pete’s sure he shouldn’t mention in his writing. “Because our gills can shut and our tails are better suited for agility rather than mere speed, those are siren traits, too. So, if the blade is in the bloodstream or if it is even against our skin for long enough, those, too, will fade. Gills close up and tails tear into limbs like yours.” Bitterness coats Patrick’s words, the same bitterness that led Pete to the sweet promise of pills and parking lot lights. It's a bitterness that stings Pete to his core because he knows this is the pain Patrick spoke of, the one that will never fade.

“Tell me,” Patrick continues, a crack in his perfect voice as he faces Pete with red-rimmed eyes, “do you know what it is like to watch your mother’s gills shut, so deep underwater that the surface seems imaginary? To watch her throw herself onto a blade aimed at you and to have her suffocate in the water of her home? Because I did not understand what it meant when her voice stopped or her scales lost her gleam but I did understand when she started gasping water into her lungs. There was no time for her tail to separate but there was more than enough time for me to watch her drown.”

The knot in Pete’s throat has no right to exist, nor does the sting in his eyes. This is just a story he’s going to write, just a character telling their tragic tale. He’s never been attached to a book he’s written— not even when it was his own life he detailed— and he’s not going to start now.

Patrick is a siren and, lies or not, creatures of the sea are not to be trusted. More than enough myths, more than enough of Mr. Urie’s warnings, have made that clear.

Still, when Pete speaks, it’s with a gentleness he didn’t know he had.

“You escaped.” It’s less a question and more a confirmation, a detail pulled from childhood movies about lost princesses and slaughtered royals. “You were the only one but… you were a child… How…?”

If the flash of regret across Patrick’s features is any indication, it’s not a question Pete should have asked.

“Joseph… Joe. He was the son of a guard, one of my friends.” Patrick shouldn’t have to tell this story, shouldn’t have to relive such horrors the way Pete knows he is. The tension in the siren’s body, the unfocused glaze over his eyes, the whisper of his words… Pete knows trauma when he sees it, knows it the way he knows his own face in the mirror. He should put a stop to this, he should say this is enough.

But his pencil keeps moving and Patrick keeps speaking.

“He was younger than I but he had this… this  _duty_ instilled in him, this idea that, because his father was a guard, he had to protect the royals, too.” Patrick spits each word out like they each carry a memory— like he can forget it all by shrouding the thoughts in his voice. “He led me to a nearby current, pulled me through caves the merfolk— no, mer _monsters_ , at that point— should never have known of. They still tracked us, though. And… I was older, I was royal, I should have been able to protect him but… I was so scared and I kept watching my mother’s murder before my eyes and I knew my siblings and father and everyone else was suffering the same fate… Joe shoved me into the current at the same time a blade tore across his throat.”

Stop talking,  _god_ , Pete wants to beg Patrick to stop talking. He wants Patrick to take back what he’s said, to spare the details and pretend this conversation never happened. He needs Patrick to stop because Patrick wasn’t the only one there, he’s not the only one who remembers. These monsters in Pete’s mind were there, too. They murdered and they tortured and each word Patrick utters is a memory they laugh at, a picture they pull into his mind.

Bodies of sirens without gills, bodies leaking blood into the water, bodies with blades embedded in their skin and scales… Pete doesn’t know if any are Patrick’s mother, doesn’t know if they’re his friends, doesn’t know if he has a right to look.

But he knows there are hundreds, thousands.

He knows Patrick’s horrors— the nightmares and trauma— are only the beginning of what the mermonsters did.

“Only the stars were with me,” Patrick continues, though Pete’s gone pale and the pencil has long since fallen from his hand. “They led me to this beach and promised to keep me safe for as long as they could, so long as I hid what I was. It felt wrong to hide my bloodline, my claim to a crown, but I did as they asked. I never sang, I never called myself a siren. I took those monsters’ name and it felt like the worst betrayal, the greatest disrespect to those they murdered, but it kept me safe. For twenty years— or more, I lost count after I realized I would be here forever— they have kept me safe. Until I broke their rule and sang. For you. I sang for you and brought those monsters here.”

That’s all— Pete knows there’s nothing more to be said. Patrick’s head hangs low and his hands shake and that should be all.

“What threat are you to them, then?” Pete asks anyway. It’s not a detail for his book, he tells himself. It’s honest curiosity and an attempt to escape the voices in his mind. “You’re a prince, I get that. But what difference would it make? They’ve condemned you to a fate that, it seems, is worse than death. Why continue to hunt you?”

Patrick’s head rolls up to gaze at Pete, emptiness in his eyes. “Because there are still subjects to protect. All the sirens are dead. I know that because I am their prince and therefore connected to each one but, ever since that day, that connection has been severed. There is nothing in my heart, no reassurance that I am not alone. But not all the merfolk turned against us. There were those that stayed, mermaids and mermen who fought on the side of the sirens. I imagine, if the dreams I have had mean anything, I am meant to create an army from them, to free them from whatever bondage the mermonsters have fashioned. They would not kill their own but they would enslave them.”

Something twists in Pete’s chest, working its way into his mind and shaping into words.

“How would that—” It’s a distraction, a question meant to grant him time to process, but Patrick rushes to answer before Pete’s even done speaking.

“It would be impossible,” he says. “I was young. I never learned more than basic water manipulation and singing. I only know songs meant to calm and soothe waves or to lure danger away. This singing is strongest when it is meant to unite our people and this is the kind I used while singing with you. It was stupid and it let the monsters know I was still alive. It sent out a signal to those still loyal to my family’s rule.”

“So they thought you were dead?” Pete asks, leaning forward now that the worst of the horrors have been shared. Patrick nods slowly.

“I have no doubts that they are afraid, that the loyal subjects are trying to resist now that they know I am alive,” Patrick says. He stops, sighing, and sinks back into the water as if he can hide in it. But the bathroom lights are relentless and Pete sees every shade of Patrick’s blush. “I wish they would just leave me be. No one needs to be resisting on my behalf.”

The twist from before, the knife-like concern in Pete’s chest, returns and, this time, he knows exactly why it’s there.

Patrick’s scarred and traumatized but he’s also a siren with people to protect. Patrick’s a prince with powers but he’s here.

He’s hiding.

“You abandoned them,” Pete breathes, the notebook falling from his lap as he pushes to his knees, searching for Patrick’s eyes as the siren— the prince— avoids his gaze. “You left them and you never returned. You let everyone— your people, people who needed you— think you were dead. You never tried to fight back or reclaim your throne. What gives you the right to throw away that title? To leave everyone behind? You speak of being alone, you judge my choice to leave, but you’re the one who chose solitude over service! You should have gone back, you could have gone back, and freed everyone that’s suffering because they believed in you and your family. Is this what the stars want? Is this why they gave you your magic or powers? So you can waste it with pity parties and lies?” Pete doesn’t mean to yell, doesn’t mean to grow so upset, but Patrick’s indifference fuels his anger and pushes him until he’s red in the face. “Is this what a king would do?”

“You saw those monsters,” Patrick snaps, looking back at Pete as his entire being shakes. “I could barely fight off two of them, you expect me to face an army?”

Pete can’t comprehend what Patrick would face if he did return, can’t pretend to know the horrors he’d have in store. The scars, silver in the light but invisible if Pete’s not looking, across his skin tell all the stories Pete could imagine. Battles Patrick’s fought, wars he never asked to be in. Pete may not understand but he can relate in ways Patrick has yet to know.

Pete swallows and, for a moment, the knot in his throat feels like a handful of pills.

“I expect you to tell me you believe there are things worth fighting for.” Pete’s voice is colder than he feels Patrick deserves but, at the same time, it’s not as harsh as he wishes he could bring himself to be. “I expect you to tell me you would fight.”

Patrick’s words are without a trace of hesitation. “There are things I would fight for and my life is one of them.”

_You weren’t even the one to fight for your own escape!_

The thought is cruel and callous, malicious and spiteful enough to have even Pete reeling back from the intensity. The thought is sudden and dark and a scream.

The thought is not Pete’s own.

Patrick’s eyes shut as if he had heard it and the monsters in Pete’s mind laugh as if the agony on his face is a victory.

Pete hates them with every breath he takes.

“I watched those monsters murder my family and I was witness to what they did to my people. I was in the room when they tore my sister from her bed and cut her screams short with a knife to her throat. Dozens of still-bleeding bodies stained my sight when Joe led me to the current, bodies that still had life and reached out for a prince who was never taught what to do for them in a situation as horrible as this.”

“Stop,” Pete asks, the word covered by Patrick’s growing volume.

“They begged me to save them because they recognized me as their prince. They knew, they sensed, every other royal had been killed and I should have been wearing the crown. A crown covered in my father’s blood,” he says, opening his eyes to reveal a new fire within them.

“Stop, Patrick—”

“I watched a friend, a boy that was still just a child, have his gills slit because he was taught to protect  _me_  over himself,” Patrick pushes himself forward, inches from Pete as he spits heartbroken words in a vicious tone. “These visions haunt me every time I close my eyes. Not because they scare me or because I am afraid to be one of them. It’s because they all saw me as a protector. Because they died believing I would survive, that I would keep the sirens alive, even if it meant I was the last one.”

“Patrick, please—” Pete can’t breathe, can’t think, blood rushing through his ears like the words rushing from Patrick’s mouth.

“They died to protect me, to defend me,” Patrick says, at last. “And what good would it do their memory if I answered that protection with a suicide mission back home?”

“Stop!”

Pete’s standing before he’s aware he’s made the choice to move. He’s tense, fight-or-flight betraying him as everything in his mind begs him to stay still, to not make a choice, to not exist at all. Breaths, ragged and torn, cut through his throat and lungs. He doesn’t dare flinch at the sensation, doesn’t dare look because he doesn’t know what he’ll face if he opens his eyes— shut without his permission, tight enough to ache. Will the light be that of the bathroom he knows he’s in? Or will it be the unflattering fluorescents of hospital hallways, hospital rooms?

Will it be the dulled flickering of a Best Buy sign?

The silence is broken by a splash. Soft, subtle.

Enough.

Pete opens his eyes, chest still heaving from the effort of shoving memories back in closets labeled as Fiction and Best-Seller. He swallows and looks for reassurance in a myth’s eyes.

All he finds, though, is fear.

Patrick’s shoved back against the side of the tub, eyes wide and breaths as fragmented as his own.

“What?” Pete asks. “What are you—”

Patrick’s eyes dart to the blade on the ground, the Sunset Blade, and everything falls into place.

He doesn’t know what he said, doesn’t know what words lead Pete back down roads he’s tried to burn. He doesn’t know the stories Pete’s written, the truths he’s sold as lies. He doesn’t know why Pete reacted so harshly to a conversation that was about Patrick’s pain.

He only knows that the monsters are in Pete’s mind. And they both know they can take control at any second.

“Calm down, I would never…” But Pete can’t even finish that sentence, can’t pretend this is okay because there’s no knowing what he’d do if those monsters possessed him again. Here, Patrick’s trapped in a tub, wounded and afraid. There’s no knowing if Pete will be able to stop the next time it happens. And, from the prodding at his thoughts, Pete knows there will be a next time.

He moves quicker than before, quicker than he had when he’d felt he was back in a screwed-up mind with depressing thoughts. Patrick winces again when Pete lifts the knife shard but Pete ignores it, storming outside with one thought on his mind.

He doesn’t want Patrick to feel the way he does. He doesn’t want Patrick’s hurt to last forever.

Pete keeps walking, one foot after another until he’s out of the house and onto the beach, onto the rocks and following a path that’s become familiar. When he stops, instinct over anything else, it’s at the place he and Patrick would meet.

He falls to his knees, hands searching for a crevice or a hole, scraping his knuckles and tearing his nails as he fights to make a crack deep enough for the Sunset Blade to fit in, a dent large enough to hide it from the waves. The blade slices across his palm, a shallow cut, but he pays no mind as he covers it with pebbles and rocks, determined that no mermonster will dare lay their hands on it. Sure, the moon will shine down and charge it but it won’t be found easily, so long as Patrick’s right about the creature’s inability to see through Pete’s eyes.

Pete doesn’t want them to see where this blade is hidden. And, more than that?

Pete doesn’t ever want to see the damned blade again. 


	9. Drama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Excited, emotional, or unexpected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a day or so late, please forgive me.
> 
> Also, bless the_chaotic_panda for beta'ing

_dra·ma_

_noun_

_an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances_

By the time the stars are blinking out of sight, Pete’s ran out of questions to ask himself. By the time he realizes he should stand and leave the ocean behind, his knees are numb from kneeling on a pile of unforgiving rocks.

Gradually, with aching joints and shaking legs, he stands. The sun kisses over the waves as he glances across it, the susurration of the water a welcome escape from the silence the monsters now taunt him with.

Awhile ago, when he’d grown bored of counting the stars, he’d wondered if the silence meant the monsters were coming for him. Terror gnawed at his thoughts but, even with this fear, he hadn’t wished to go back inside. He couldn’t bring himself to face Patrick’s stories anymore. Perhaps it was cruel to leave Patrick alone after forcing him to relive those horrors but Pete couldn’t bring himself to return to the siren’s side. Each time Patrick crossed his thoughts, a dozen reasons to stay away appeared.

Patrick couldn’t possibly wish to speak with Pete.

The mermonsters may find more terrible images of massacre to present.

Pete could lose all will to write his book.

Pete could find every ounce of motivation needed to finish his book. He could find a reason to leave this place behind for good.

Though, was there anything wrong with that last thought? Shouldn’t he want to go home? Shouldn’t he want to escape an adventure he never asked to begin? Shouldn’t he feel nothing for a creature who shouldn’t exist? Each question made him feel sicker than the last.

Now, though, in the light of day and with his back to the water, reasoning awakens. He’ll write his book and he’ll go home to the city, he decides. Whatever happens between now and the last page of his book hardly matters.

Or so he repeats to himself as the back door slams shut behind him.

The Sun is up, he thinks as light infiltrates the sky, so Patrick must be asleep. It’s a pattern Pete learned from the time they spent on the rocks.

He could ill-afford to wake Patrick and have him asking questions about the shard of Sunset Blade so Pete heads to the kitchen sink, wincing when he unfolds his dirtied, cut up hands from their roles as fists at his side. He doesn’t bother with his own comfort when selecting the temperature. Patrick had scorched away the mermonsters’ control before and, as he sticks his hands under the steaming flow, Pete wonders if he can do the same. Replace the voices with his own, with memories instead of forced thoughts. Now, in the moments of silence, Pete believes he has as good a chance as any to escape.

His skin burns red from the heat as seconds pass, his arms and fingers twitching as instinct demands he pull away.  _Just a moment longer_ , he insists against it. Just another instant and these cackling creatures will lose their claim on his mind. He repeats it to himself like a line from a favored daydream.

The mermonsters awaken with a piercing laugh, called to action by the sound of water rushing free from Pete’s faucet.

Pete’s hands snap back into fists, water pouring across the skin like fire but it’s nothing compared to the inferno of voices in his mind.

 _Bring him to the ocean_ , they tell him.  _Bring us the siren while he is weak and we will torment you no more._

Pete grits his teeth together and shoves against the intrusion with every swear he knows. The mermonsters can’t hear his thoughts but he prays they can feel his hatred for them.

 _Bring the siren prince_. Their demands grow in volume, an aching pressure against Pete’s school.  _Bring him! Bring him! Bring him!_

_Splash!_

Pete jerks away from the water, eyes wide and breath catching in his throat like a knife. His vision darts to the window, to the sea beyond it, and he’s overcome by the sudden silence in his mind.

Have they come for him? Have they done what Patrick said they could? Become human, trade their tails for a chance to walk on land? Bile and acid rest in the back of Pete’s throat at the thought. Any moment, they’ll burst through the door, he’s sure, their hell-sent presence meant only to drag him back into the waves.

Pete’s unaware of his trembling until another splash fills the air and he’s broken from the terror. This time, he turns his head towards the source.

He turns and, with a sigh that steals all stress from his chest, he heads towards Patrick.

The siren’s splashes have turned to a vehement thrashing by the time Pete arrives, Patrick’s eyes closed even as his gills open and shut with a speed that can’t be healthy. Pete’s frozen as Patrick’s tail slams against the wall and tub, his face distorted into a perfectly imperfect mask of fear. He makes no sound as his mouth mimics his gills— open, shut, open, shut— but Pete knows a scream when he sees one.

He’s on his knees in an instant, reaching for Patrick but not knowing what he plans to do. He grabs the siren’s shoulder but Patrick pulls from his grip with ease. He calls his name but Patrick can’t seem to hear. Even when Pete turns on the faucet and splashes cold water onto his face, the drops evaporate from the siren’s skin before they have a chance to settle.

“Come on, wake up,” Pete grumbles, grabbing onto Patrick’s wrists as he claws out into the air. His grip tightens cruelly when a sound escapes Patrick’s lips— a foreign sound, an inhuman word. The siren’s claws seem to sharpen before Pete’s eyes. “This isn’t okay, you’re getting water everywhere. Wake up, wake up, wake u— Wait, no!”

Pete frees Patrick’s wrists and dives forward, biting down hard on his lip when Patrick’s head tosses violently towards the side of the tub. Pete lessens the collision at the last second, though he feels skin break beneath his teeth when Patrick’s head crushes Pete’s hand against the bath. The pain of the now-bruised knuckles lingers as he tries to find a better grip on the siren’s head, itching and throbbing like a scaly patch of skin all his own. Eventually, after one too many tosses of Patrick’s head against his hand, Pete gives up on playing nice and twists his fingers into the siren’s hair, keeping his head still and preventing further damage to either of them. Patrick whines— high-pitched and certainly not a sound a human could make— but his movements still enough for Pete to loosen his grip, brushing his fingers through Patrick’s hair rather than tugging on it.

“Was that so hard?” He mutters in a tone eerily similar to the one his mother always used. His other hand brushes against a spot of scales above Patrick’s tail, the sensation caught in a place between sandpaper and glass. “You could have hurt yourself on the bath, you know. You’re lucky I was nice enough to risk breaking my fingers. That’s a second time I’ve saved you.” He trails off, his frustration dwindling with each breath. Patrick’s hair is softer than he’d expect from someone spending all their time in saltwater, little brushes of stardust-shaded silk against his palm. Pete swallows, eyes stuck on the siren’s now serene face— pale cheeks, pink lips, blonde eyelashes pressed against perfect skin. He wonders how Patrick would look with a crown set upon his head, wonders how royal he could appear. In the bath, wounded and frightened, he seems so small. Yet those mermonsters wish him to be dead? Can’t they see he holds no threat? Can’t they see they’ve hurt him enough?

In the silence the mermonsters have left— unexplained and equally unquestioned— Pete lets his thoughts run away with the being before him. Though Patrick’s calm and he doesn’t seem to need the reassurance any longer, Pete continues to stroke his hair and scales, in time with the flutter of his gills. His left hand aches with each action, a reminder of the way he’d tossed it between Patrick’s head and the unforgiving side of the bath. He frowns, his actions slowing.

“You said the mermonsters control me but that’s the second time I’ve tried to save you. What’s interrupting their assassination attempts so easily?” He pauses, aware Patrick can’t hear but needing to get the words out before the monsters reappear. “We’re barely friends. None of this makes sense, Patrick. Why are you here? Why am  _I_ still here?”

He shakes his head. He shuts his eyes. Sleep calls to him with the distant promise of rest and peace but he can’t bring himself to move, can’t force himself to pull away. Patrick nuzzles closer into his hand and Pete rests his head on the edge of the bath, a smile reshaping on his lips even as he asks the question circling his mind as savagely as the monsters.

“Why do I keep protecting you?”

~

Pete sleeps with darkness in his thoughts. An emptiness like murky waters, rippling with each emotion brave enough to pass across it. Fragile waves press against his skull, paper thin but barely moving in the storm his brain has always been. Back and forth, like the rocking of a child. Back and forth, like the clouds across the sky. Back and forth, like the sun running to and from the dawn.

Through it all, through the many hours his eyes are shut, the voices are silent. They’re present— the shadows beneath the waves he dreams of make it more than obvious— but they bring no words. They show no cruelty. Sometimes, it seems, God— or the devil and the demons he’s made— can grant a favor.

When Pete wakes, at last, it’s with a single caress of water against his temple. When Pete wakes, it’s with Patrick’s eyes on him.

“You are awake,” Patrick says before Pete’s fully lifted his head from the awkward way it’d been bent to rest on the bath’s edge. He groans and rubs his neck, Patrick’s frown deepening as if he’d been wearing it for longer than Pete knows. “You are here.”

“Yeah, I live here,” Pete says, blinking harshly until the sleep connecting his eyelashes together falls away. Patrick’s lips part at the lack of a true answer but shut just as quickly, the frown back and more disappointed than before. Pete ignores it, considering it too early— or, if Patrick’s awake, too late— for such a conversation. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Patrick says, far too quickly for it to be an honest response. Pete raises an eyebrow, his gaze dropping to Patrick’s hand resting on the bandages. They’re wet and loose, a night of flailing in the water doing them no favors. Patrick follows Pete’s eyes, his hand pressing fully against the area as if to protect it from prying eyes.

“Do you, like, heal quicker?” Pete asks, his voice as unsteady as the topic at hand. Patrick scoffs. It’s a harsh sound, one that has Pete cutting his questioning off short, but it’s normal. It’s familiar.

“I am not as magical as you seem to think,” Patrick says, his frown twitching into an uneven smile. Bitter and tasteless, it still helps Pete to swallow his worries. “No, I do not heal any quicker than humans. Or, at least, no quicker than the humans I have met.”

“Oh.” It’s one word, one sound, but it stills in the air like the end of a speech. Pete waits for it to settle, to land on Patrick’s skin with the water surrounding him. Back and forth, the water sways. But Patrick’s hand shakes without rhythm above his wound. “Here, let me change that.”

Pete reaches out, unsure of whether he should expect Patrick to pull away or attack. Like a schoolyard game of Chicken, who here has made a claim on stronger fear? Who here has the greater reason?

Neither or both, the answer isn’t clear as Pete gently moves Patrick’s hand to the side and peels away the bandage. The wound is better than it was, Pete notes with a sigh, but it’s still horrible to look at. A gaping hole in Patrick’s side, the skin around it almost a plum shade, with dried blood around the edges. Pete feels sick, feels like pasting the old bandage back on and walking away.

When Patrick flinches at Pete’s touch, a touch so soft it’s hardly there, Pete feels like inflicting the same pain on the mermonsters claiming Patrick’s home.

As Pete sets to work on Patrick’s wound, time is nothing more than a halted song. At the end of the chorus but before the second verse, the two sit and try to guess at what comes next. The comfortable silence is a blessing and necessity as the demons in Pete’s mind awake, unfurling like a roll of gift wrap in his head.

Gift wrap, wrapping paper, the kind that tears before scissors have a chance to touch it.

“Why were you in here?” Patrick asks a different version of the question he had uttered before. Pete keeps silent, bottom lip between his teeth. If he speaks with those voices in his head, whose words will come out?

Patrick is silent for only a second, the side of his hand gliding across Pete’s wrist as if the siren can’t choose whether to grab onto him or not. When Patrick speaks again, it’s with a new form of hurt in his voice. “I understand if you do not wish to speak with me. What I said before… I know it was a lot and I am sorry if—”

“A nightmare,” Pete cuts in, incapable of hearing Patrick blame himself for Pete’s silence. Patrick stops, lips still apart, and looks to Pete. Pete, who drops his gaze down to his hands and shrugs as if this shouldn’t matter. “You had a nightmare last night. Or, at least, it seemed like it. I fell asleep in here after calming you down, I guess.”

Patrick’s lips press together before he sighs a small, “you guess?”

Again, Pete shrugs, taping the last piece of the bandage in place and leaning back on his heels. “What was it about? Your nightmare, that is.”

“Nothing.” Another short response, a shot in the dark but with a gun Pete fashioned. “It was nothing.”

“Yeah, see, I don’t believe that,” Pete says, holding up his hand. His knuckles are just as bruised as he’d expected them to be, light blues and vibrant reds, shades of pain and violence. Patrick barely reacts to the sight but Pete comforts himself with the pretense that he sees concern in those ocean eyes. “I had to keep you from slamming your head into the side. So, another thing you owe me for.”

Patrick’s eyes narrow. “You and your debts.”

“Me and my right to know what I’m getting into.” Pete drops his hand, leaning forward once again. “Look, don’t think I’m doing this to be pushy. I’m genuinely trying to help.”

“Not everything can be treated with bandages, Pete,” Patrick snaps, moving as close to the other side of the tub as he can. “You only had a claim to my story, nothing else. You will not have my mind. You will not have me. I swear you cannot—”

_You cannot have me_

“Oh, for god’s sake, shut up and let people help you for once! Is it so hard to realize that people care?” The words leave, racing from Pete’s lips like a waterfall he has no power to control. “I get it, really, I do. It’s easy to think that you’re alone, that no one else will take care of your thoughts in the same way. But that’s bullshit and it does nothing but keep you lonely so screw feeling safe. You’ll never get help if you don’t ask for it so, damn it, stop being so goddamn stubborn.”

Patrick’s burning cheeks reach a new intensity, a brighter shade of sunrise red. His nails, his claws, click against each other like a rocket’s countdown, promising an eruption through the peaceful atmosphere created only to keep them safe. He glares in a way that’s become more usual than Pete would like. They’re mere feet apart but, somehow, Patrick’s eyes look a universe away.

“Oh, and I should trust that you have taken your own advice?” He asks, a cruel lilt in the tone. Pete stiffens, his jaw snapping shut before he finishes taking a breath.

“This isn’t about me,” he spits, teeth grit so tightly they may shatter at any moment. Patrick laughs, nothing like the giggles he once shared.

“Then what is it about?” Cruel. Petty.

Hurt.

Pete shuts his eyes. Why is he so angry at Patrick’s words? What is he shouting for? Who is he yelling at?

The answer is cruel. It’s petty.

It hurts.

When the water shifts, Pete opens his eyes.

“It’s about you failing to recognize that people… That  _I,_ at least, care. And that’s why I’m asking about your dream.” His words are slow, chosen like promises but spoken like sobs. “I’m not trying to hurt or trick you. I wouldn’t.”

“You lie and—” Patrick’s response, another acidic tone, slips away without cause, the siren’s eyes softening and his tension fading into defeat. Entire eras begin and in the time it takes for him to finally speak once more. Those eyes— young and weary, old but so vibrant— reach up for Pete’s. “I want to believe you but I have not had anyone to care for me in a long time. When you have been alone as long as I have, it is hard to learn how to trust again.”

Pete swallows though his mouth is dry. He dips his fingertips into the tub, connected to Patrick by nothing more than meaningless bathwater. “You can trust me.” His words are a mere breath.

Patrick bites his lip, Pete wincing at the sight of fangs digging into the soft flesh, and, slowly, his fingers brush against Pete’s. Like the night before, his eyes are shut and his words are dull needles into Pete’s chest.

“I was alone,” he says. “In my dream, I was alone with nothing but the voices of those monsters in my head. They taunted in ways they knew would hurt the most, telling me they do not crave my death. My disappearance, yes, but not my murder. I am the last siren, a being born from the stars. What the stars made once, they can make again. If I die, the stars will only fashion a new generation of sirens, a stronger generation. No, the mermonsters cannot have that. They will kill me if they must, but my dream… In my dream, they showed me the caves my father locked them in. And they were horrid places, places where the light could never reach. In my dream, they dragged me there, they locked me in because they knew I could not fight them. And, in the darkness and emptiness, I felt myself going mad. I felt a future of nothingness and, at that moment, I felt like them.”

Patrick’s eyes open and, to Pete’s surprise, they’re as dry as they were when they were shut.

“They have taken so much from me, Pete. My family and friends and people. The chance to bury and properly mourn those I lost. My freedom.” Patrick pauses, sucking in a shaky breath before looking into Pete’s eyes. He spits the next words, harsher than anything he’d spoken prior. “And now they have my mind.”

Pete’s eyebrows furrow together. “What do you mean they…  _Oh.”_

_Oh_

The monsters in Pete’s mind roll in laughter, shrieking and howling with inhuman tongues. Because Pete wasn’t the only one who let the ocean’s water dry on his skin.

Patrick is guilty of that, too.

“They have you,” Pete breathes, horror coating each word like a mask for the terror he feels. “They’re in your mind and they can still hurt you.”

Patrick’s still, arms wrapped around himself in a way that would never serve as protection.

“Not entirely,” he says, low enough for Pete to struggle to understand but not enough to throw off the creatures in his thoughts. “It is only because I am away from the stars. The sun and stars shine down on the water as much as the moon. It is only when my stars are gone— at day and when I sleep— that I am unguarded. The connection is severed and… and they can give me all the nightmares and threats they desire. I know I have no reason to complain, not when they have such a hold on you but… but it felt so real and I am too terrified to ever try to sleep again if that is what is waiting for me and… and I have no idea how to fight this off, Pete, I—”

Patrick’s shaking hands are caught in Pete’s, his red-gold hair soaking into the other’s shirt when he lets his head fall forward. Pete’s leaning into the bath as far as he can, playing the role of comfort with only his experience as the victim for reference.

“I won’t let them come for you,” he swears, though his pulse doubles when he remembers how Patrick said the mermaids and mermen traded their tails for legs. He shakes his head and tries again, freeing a hand so he can cradle the back of Patrick’s head as the siren shudders against him. “I’ll shield you from them, I promise, if they find you here. I’ve protected you this far. I won’t give up so easily.”

Patrick tries to pull back but Pete’s grip is as much for himself as it is for the siren. He needs to feel Patrick’s warmth against him, to ease this trembling away and replace it with the innocent smiles they traded at the beginning of this all. He can’t protect himself from what the mermonsters are doing in his brain but he can protect Patrick. He can at least do that.

“But maybe I should,” Patrick mumbles against him, shattering Pete’s ruminations with a few well-placed cracks. When Pete remains quiet, Patrick shoves him away, eyes downcast as he pushes the hair back from his reddened face. “You may not wish to give up but, think of it, I will spend the rest of my life hiding. Hunted like the animal you and your people see me as. And, as I run, those loyal to my family will suffer. They deserve a king who will fight for them, a king who will protect them as you have done for me. The mermonsters say they want me alive but the Sunset Blade they brought says differently. Maybe… Maybe, if I let them finish what they started, the stars can create the next sirens. Maybe, if I just give up, the sirens that follow will take back the kingdom in ways I never could. Maybe—”

“Don’t make me tell you to shut up again,” Pete says, shaking just as much as Patrick, if not more. His hands twitch towards the siren, itching to grasp his hands again— to force him down and scream in his face, to hold him close and never let go. His words, his insinuations, sink into Pete’s bones like the monsters in his mind, with dagger teeth and vicious tones. For a second, Pete’s back where he was before hiding the piece of knife, stuck between nightmare and reality. The only thing keeping him from going back to the place he left in the pages of his books is the fear that Patrick’s hidden there. “Promise me you won’t ever say anything like that. Promise you won’t even fucking think it. The world needs  _you_ , not a Walmart-copy tossed out by the stars in a time of need. Your people need  _you_. You’re good and kind and golden and the… the fucking stars protected you for a reason. A second chance, a purpose, whatever, just… Just don’t throw it away, don’t you  _ever_ throw it away.”

By the time Pete’s lost his words to the conversation, Patrick’s breaths are nothing more than agonized gasps. He sounds like a fish out of water and in any other circumstance, any other one at all, Pete might have smiled at the comparison. But Patrick’s eyes are glistening and his lips are quivering from the indecision over whether to shut his mouth or leave it gaping for the air rushing in and out. His blinking has become violent, his nails dig into his tail, and Pete can find no reason in the world to smile right now.

“Patrick?” He begins, as gentle as he dares. “Patrick, are you—”

Before the words are out, Patrick’s lunged from the water to wrap his arms around Pete’s neck. For an instant, Pete fears Patrick’s turned on him and he’s going to be drowned in his own bathtub. He fears he said the wrong thing, triggered the wrong memory, and the real monster was the creature he swore to protect.

The thoughts only last a moment, though, before Pete realizes Patrick’s hugging him.

Patrick buries his face in Pete’s neck, his nose cold where it presses at Pete’s pulse and his hair tickling his cheek. His trembles travel and become Pete’s, a shared reaction to the injustices of life, but he also brings a solid comfort to the embrace. Despite the water and scales, Pete’s never felt safer than he does at this moment.

“You never fail to amaze me,” Patrick says, stumbling stops and sobs between every other word. “Is this a story meant to inspire? A tale created so I may feel special or brave? Pete, I… I love your words but I do not believe them.”

Pete’s arms wrap around Patrick’s back, holding him to keep weight off the siren’s tail. It distracts him from the emotions tangling within Patrick’s words and the emotions stirring in his own gut when the siren speaks.

“Patrick,” he breathes. “What do you believe, then?” Another distraction, another way to tiptoe into the world he’s been introduced to rather than dive headfirst into it.

Patrick’s embrace tightens.

“I do not believe in much. But I do know I believe humanity is lucky to have someone like you.”

Somehow, Pete feels a layer of distress strip away from his heart, leaving it raw and exposed and beating with the raging violence of a thunderstorm. Somehow, he loses his words and wittiness once again, nothing but music and Patrick's voice to fight away the monsters in his thoughts. Somehow, Pete feels his hold on Patrick tighten to a point that should be uncomfortable but only brings Patrick to push closer towards him.

Somehow, despite it all, this moment feels right. 


	10. Gothic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fear, horror, death, and gloom
> 
> Nature, individuality, and very high emotion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-beta'd because chaotic-panda is at a concert. I think. I hope she's having fun <3
> 
> I also rushed to post this so, like, sorry for any mistakes

_goth·ic_

_adjective_

_a style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and very high emotion  
_

 

 

 _Days pass like whispers and nights are the lovers who share them. Sometimes, my dreams connect the two but, more often than not, they appear for no longer than a heartbeat. And I am left with the big black emptiness of nightmares and_ their _voices._

_It makes me sick, the way they hiss and coil around my brain, their words my new synapses and neurons. I cannot move without their breath along my spinal chord. I cannot speak without their voices tempting my tongue first. I can never find enough sleep or time or words with their presence always so known._

_As their control grows, as I recognize patterns in them and_ he  _recognizes patterns in me, I become more and more unsure. Insecure. Impure._

_Gray. ~~(~~_ ~~_Again, no, never again, this isn’t that story, this isn’t that tale, this isn’t that life, this_ _—)_ ~~

_One such pattern is that of fear. The way I recoil from the monsters’ suggestions and the way Patrick narrows his eyes as I flinch in the middle of shattered glass conversations, neither of us aware of who should be more afraid._

_The monsters, too, have worked their way into this game. At dawn and at dusk, they almost sound human— or siren or anything other than what they are. Reasoning, talking, cajoling me into releasing Patrick to the sea like a fish captured too early. When they remind me of how I hardly know the siren, of how easily he’s changed from childish to tormented, they almost make sense._

_But then the Sun rises. But then the stars outshine their moon. But then their few hours of control slip away and they are nothing more than snarling sounds and disturbed demands, distorted by mouths created for a more fantastical dialect._

_And this isn’t to mention how they sound whenever they hear_ him _._

Him _._

_When Patrick laughs, they scream. When he cries, they shout. When he says siren or prince or home, they shriek as if the sound will grant them mercy from his words._

_I do not understand these monsters; I do not wish to._

_Despite this, I do know one thing. Something they have tried to hide from me. Something they have hidden from him. Until now._

_These monsters are terrified of Patrick._

_~_

“Well, look here, if it isn’t the new guy!” Brendon says brightly when Pete stumbles into the shop one day. Day clings to the horizon, the setting sun making way for darkened thoughts and less control over which words are his own. He glances wearily at Brendon, trying to pretend he hadn’t woken up just an hour ago. “I was worried we scared you off with all that talk of myths and stuff. Really, you don’t need to think about that crap, my dad’s just obsessed with monsters.”

Pete starts and he’s unsure if it’s because of the word or the insinuation Patrick’s one of them. He glares at Brendon with more heat than he means. “Then stop talking about it.”

Brendon’s eyes widen but the request only serves to increase his amount of speech— backtracking, apologizing, beginning to stutter. “Oh, I didn’t mean to— I just, sorry, I thought— Um, my dad, he—”

“Brendon,” Pete sighs, running his hands down his face. It’s evening but it feels too early for this, far too early for this. “It’s fine, sorry. I’m just tired.”

“Oh, okay,” Brendon says, smile easing back into place as if it had never left. “Long day?”

_Nightmares and ink-stained fingertips, pencil lead tripping into dreamscapes and prose. Sleeping for an hour and writing for two, never truly awake as cruel monsters stretch out beneath the threat of the sun in the sky—_

Pete smiles, wry and sharp. “Something like that.”

Brendon’s blessedly silent but for his humming as Pete searches the aisles. He finds what he’s looking for easily enough— this is a shop aimed at tourists and families, after all— but it takes him more than a few minutes to work up the strength to actually buy it.

So, Mr. Urie finds him staring exasperatedly at a shelf of childish bath toys.

“You have children?” Mr. Urie asks, skipping the niceties and heading straight for suspicion. Pete shrugs, fighting around his pride and reaching for a pink rubber duck. He squeezes it softly, the comically high-pitched squeak helping to ease his nerves.

“I can’t buy some toys without being questioned?” Pete asks as he drops the duck into his basket. “Careful, you’ll lose customers if you try to interrogate them.” He reaches for the last pack of bath markers but Mr. Urie grabs them before Pete can. The dark hair on his knuckles and the thick wedding band contrast against the kid’s toy, wrapping it up in accusations and tearing away its innocence.

Pete sighs, pulling a go-to excuse free from the corner of his mind he’s kept it in. “I’m a writer, man. I just need it for research.”

“What are you writing about?” Mr. Urie’s eyes remain locked on the markers, suspicion making way for confusion. A better emotion to deal with but no less frustrating for Pete.

“Can’t say yet,” he says, thoughtlessly turning to toss a handful of toy boats into the basket. “I’ve been advised not to spread my plots around before they’re published.”

“Right.” Mr. Urie passes the markers back to Pete, though his eyes remain narrowed. “You know, no one’s seen you around recently.”

“You see me now, don’t you?” Water gears, toy submarines, and a floating turtle join the cluster of toys in the basket, along with the markers. Pete’s tempted to keep searching but Patrick is sure to wake soon and Pete doesn’t want him to do so alone. “Besides, I have a right to hang out at my house if I want to.”

“That may be so.” Mr. Urie walks alongside Pete up to the counter, Brendon sighing and rolling his eyes when he sees his father.

“You’ve  _got_  to be kidding me,” Brendon says, ringing up Pete’s orders without batting an eye. “Dad, we’re gonna lose all our customers if you keep bothering them and—”

“Aren’t you the one who said you saw him speaking to the water that first week we met him?” Mr. Urie asks, eyes never leaving Pete’s. Pete goes cold, looking to Brendon in betrayal.

“You were spying on me?” The incredulous shout wakes the monsters in his mind, sends them turning and cackling with intrigue seeping from their lips. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“I wasn’t spying!” Brendon says, dropping a toy boat and raising his hands in surrender. “My friends and I were gonna mess with you. Sneak into the beach and, I don’t know, toss some rocks into the water to make it seem like something was in there? We do that to all the people my dad tries to scare off but you were already outside and, okay, it looked like you were talking to the water.”

Pete’s teeth capture his tongue and the monsters capture his mind.

_They’ll think you’re crazy or strange or wrong and it’s all his fault so give him to us, give give give gi—_

“I dropped something in,” Pete says. “I was trying to find it.”

It’s not a lie but it’s just as uncomfortable to say, the empty weight around his neck feeling more pronounced than it had in weeks.

Mr. Urie’s silent as Pete pays, uncurling his fists so he can take the bag from Brendon. No one speaks until Pete’s halfway out the door.

“We’re just trying to look out for you,” Mr. Urie says. “We’re not the ones with the power to hurt you. And you’re not the one we want to hurt, anyway.”

The door slams shut on Mr. Urie’s words.

But there’s nothing to shut out the cruel laughter in Pete’s mind.

~

Pete’s already waiting at the bathtub's side when Patrick’s eyes crack open. He wakes like a well-rested infant; he’s blinking eyes and smacking lips and tired smiles.

“You are here,” Patrick says as if this is anything new. When Pete raises an eyebrow, Patrick continues with a soft voice and faltering smile. “They were in my dreams again. They made me feel alone. So it is nice to remember I am not.”

“Right.” A request for more information rests on Pete’s tongue, a question for details about the dream and what Patrick saw. Was he in the caves again? Locked away with no one to search for him? Or did they trap him in this bathtub with nothing but Pete’s absence and the brutality of the ocean’s distant laugh?

Pete’s learned not to ask such things anymore. Patrick’s become more open with his answers and, Pete’s realized, the monsters have a far worse imagination than he.

“I got you some stuff from the store,” Pete says, changing the subject and reaching for the bag beside him. “It seems like it can get boring in here so I thought maybe these could help. I don’t know, it’s just a stupid idea. Don’t feel forced to like it or anything.”

The first thing to be set along the edge of the bath is the pink duck. Patrick frowns at it, lifting the toy as Pete works on freeing the rest from their plastic packages.

“What is this supposed to—”  _Squeak!_ “Oh! Oh, I get it now!”

Patrick’s laughter paints the room, paired with the squeaks from the rubber toy. Pete smiles at the sound, though he curses when the plastic scratches a line across his finger.

“Yeah, that one’s pretty simple. I think you’ll find the rest cool, too. My mom would always by me these marker things as a kid and—”

Pete looks up and his words fade away at the sight of Patrick’s smile.

It’s an expression one may find on some joyous painting, beauty and elation mixed like watercolors across Patrick’s face. He smiles down at the toy without shyness or hesitation, no cold fear that it may be the wrong action or time. It’s warm and it’s secure, drawn on his face with a marker Pete hopes is permanent. Patrick’s laughter, too, is breathless, rippling through the air the way the water ripples around his shaking form. A shaking that, Pete realizes with a jolt, comes not from pain or terror as it has been so often. His laugh is a sound Pete hasn’t heard in his entire lifetime, a sound he would wait another lifetime to hear again.

It’s a sound that sends all the mermonsters into a stunned silence.

“You all create such silly things,” Patrick says, looking up to Pete with that perfect smile. Something warm drips through Pete’s veins at the sight. “We had nothing like this back home. My brother would try to make toys from the things he found in shipwrecks but those never lasted long in the water.”

A piece of Patrick’s happiness fades when he speaks of his brother though his smile remains. It’s as if, halfway through the sentence, he’d realized what he’d said but thought it too late to change his words.

Without missing a beat, Pete clears his throat and moves on. “Yeah, I would have gotten you more but Mr. Urie— oh, the store owner, I guess— was being a dick about it all.”

This time, Patrick’s smile does drop. This time, he goes white and lets the toy slip from his hands.

“Urie?” He breathes, twitching as he stares straight ahead. He searches the water blindly for the rubber duck, swallowing in a way that makes his gills appear to flinch.

Pete pauses, setting the half-opened pack of bath markers down and tipping his head to the side.

“Yeah,” he says. “What, you know him?”

“No,” Patrick spits, head jerking over to glare at Pete the way he’s only done while they’ve fought. Pete pulls back, the snake-like voices of the mermonsters peeking out from the shadows to whisper that  _he’s dangerous dangerous dangerous let us take care of it._ Before Pete can shove them back— before he can consider their words— Patrick looks away, shoulders slumping. “I am not going to talk about it.”

A headache presses against Pete’s temples and he’s uncertain whether it’s because of the monsters or the exposure of another secret. He bites back a sigh and runs his hands over his face.

“He hates you, you know,” he says, not missing the way Patrick’s jaw twitches at the words. His teeth are clenched together and he’s staring at the wall opposite Pete. He’s not hurt or pained by whatever memory Urie has brought up. This isn’t like the other times, the times where Pete knew he was dragging Patrick’s mind through a battlefield with nothing to protect it. This isn’t trauma or depression. It’s  _rage_. “Every time I go in, he warns me about monsters in the ocean. Is he talking about you?”

Patrick scoffs, an unpleasant scraping sound. “I am sure he thinks he is.” His hands are fists beneath the water, knuckles as white as his fangs when he pulls his lips back in a snarl. “He always did have a fascination with blaming me for his fears.”

Darkness hangs onto the edges of Patrick’s words, clipped to them like a locket around a neck. He says nothing more but Pete’s mind is already moving, racing to an answer that causes his stomach to turn over in disgust.

“You said there was another human who abandoned you. Someone who found the truth and left.” Pete’s guess is more than confirmed by Patrick’s sharp nod but he continues anyway. Each word hangs on a tendril of disbelief, a silent plea for his next statement to be wrong. “Was that him?”

Patrick tortures Pete with silence, with hands cupped with water raising to his gills so not even his breaths can be heard. He takes his time, flicks the duck away from his tail, and then looks up into Pete’s eyes.

“The Urie I knew left a long time ago. He was the brother of the one you speak of now, years younger and miles kinder,” he says, voice devoid of emotion. “He was the first to ever befriend me, the first— and only— human I trusted with all my secrets. I had spent ten years, still a terrified child, fighting to find comfort in the presences of those who lived here. None of them wanted anything to do with me. But then he and his family came and… and he was not afraid.”

Patrick curls his tail in closer to himself, running his fingers through his hair with a heavy sigh. Pete watches, incapable of speaking from how tightly his lips are pressed together. Something ugly pokes at his thoughts and guts but it’s easy to ignore, easy to call the monsters’ doing.

“His name was Roy, something he complained about because it rhymed with his brother’s name— Boyd. He snuck out, every night, to speak with me. The way you did but… but different. Different because we were both still so young and he could get caught at any second,” Patrick says, wistfulness seeping into his tone like too much ink on a page. Somehow, Pete’s hands become fists in his lap. “It was different because we became more than friends. He never had a word for it but he would press his lips to mine and he would hold my hand and we would say nothing as we watched the stars.”

The sick feeling from before returns, twice as strong as it had been. Pete passes it off as the monsters. He writes it off as anger at knowing something horrible must have followed. When none of those reasons fit, he ignores it completely. There’s no reason for Patrick’s words to cause such an upset stir in him. Perhaps he’s just tired.

“So I’m guessing he broke your heart or something?” He spits, looking away from Patrick’s flinch. It's a cold statement but the growing warmth in Patrick’s tone was getting too much for him to hear.

“Something,” Patrick says, as sharp as the monstrous laughter now echoing through Pete’s skull. He turns to Pete but Pete averts his eyes, staring instead at the fins on Patrick’s tail. Something to remind him this is just another character he’s writing, just a creature he had to save. “I told him everything I told you and more. I told him about my family, about what I had witnessed. I told him I was a siren and he decided to tell his brother. His brother who, apparently, found something wrong with Roy's fascination with me. His brother who, one night, told Roy to stay inside while he came out to talk to me. And when he went to our meeting place, I had no way to know it was not Roy. Boyd saw me and—”

And Pete can already picture what must have occurred, can hear the accusations that would have landed on Patrick’s skin like physical blows. He grows cold at the image of a younger Patrick— bright-eyed but still healing, finding love for the first time with someone who could never understand his world— swimming to meet with someone he trusted. Did he notice something was wrong before the cruelest of words were released into the waves? Did he wait to listen to what Boyd had to say? Did he believe any of what he heard?

“He called me a monster,” Patrick says, hands shaking beneath the water. “He said that I used siren magic to make his brother fall in love with me, that I was trying to lure him away from the proper lifestyle. He wished for his brother to grow up good, he said, and marry a girl like he was supposed to. And I was corrupting him. I was evil and wrong and unnatural so he needed to put a stop to it before I could do any more damage.” Again, Patrick trails off but Pete doesn’t miss the way his hand slips towards his lower back, above his tail. He goes cold with the thought of what the action may mean.

“I’m guessing he didn’t ask nicely,” Pete says, all hostility fading away. A chill enters the room, uncomfortably relentless when Patrick shrugs.

“He did ask, at first. But I loved Roy— or, I thought I did— so I fought against it. He had brought his father’s… I believe Roy called it a gun? Those do not exist for us but Boyd had one and fired it into the water when I refused to go. I still have the sound in my head, the thunder held in a young man’s hand… “ Patrick stops, shivering, before continuing. “The stars told me what to do next, to defend myself with the true power of a siren. All I did was pull him in, all I did was try to mimic that sound of thunder with crashing waves and boiling water. I did not want to kill him or hurt him… I only wanted him to leave me alone! But Roy ran out and he only saw a monster holding his brother beneath the water. The gun was still on the rocks and he—”

“ _He shot you?_ ” Pete shouts, eyes wide at Patrick’s story. His cry causes Patrick to flinch but Pete’s too busy imagining the scene to care. Patrick was young and not of this world, he didn’t know what a gun did so how did he react to the pain he must have felt? Did Roy— someone who claimed to love him, someone Patrick claimed to love in return— help him or did he leave them there to bleed?

Patrick’s eyes are as empty as the ocean appears— only seeming as such but holding unbelievable nightmares beneath.

“He missed. Boyd said he missed. But something like a mermonster's knife tore across my back, above my tail, and I could barely swim away. As I tried to understand what had happened, Roy shouted that his brother was right. I had tricked him, lied to him, proven myself a monster.” Patrick takes a breath, shallow but steady. “The family moved away the next month and Roy only returned to tell me that he would be leaving town. That I would never see him again. And he was right. It has been nearly ten years since he decided he hated me and all I have is the scar to prove it ever happened.”

“But Mr— Boyd. He stayed. And he hasn’t come after you again?” Pete asks before Patrick’s words sink their claws in too deeply. If he lingers on the story for a second longer, if he lets himself wonder how Patrick felt, he fears he may become the monster Mr. Urie speculates about.

Patrick’s lips turn up in a twisted smile, a funhouse distortion of the joy he’d shown just minutes before. “That would require him to remember how deeply he hates me.”

Time stops and the very world seems to hold its breath.

Slowly, before time can add another second to history, Pete speaks. “Remember?”

Patrick’s smile grows into a cold smirk, a dangerous glint of the creature Mr. Urie believes him to be. His eyes glisten with what could be malice, could be tears. With a cautious turn of the head, he looks at Pete.

“The moon has control of the water but the sand is only ever warmed by the sun,” he says. “The stars have placed their magic in it, another defense against those who may wish to harm me. So long as the sand lingers— on clothes, on hair, on skin— I can be remembered. But the second the sand is gone so is a human’s memory of me. Boyd still lives by the beach but the small grains he encounters are never enough. He remembers only what he wishes— that a dangerous creature lives in the water,” he says, a delirious note in his tone. “Others, too, have seen me but they never remember details. I am just a myth to them. Some story they spread around with few ever believing it to be true.”

 _But I’m going back to the city when this book is finished_ , Pete thinks.  _And sand cannot remain forever._

There’s been enough confession tonight, though, and Pete keeps his words to himself. It shouldn’t matter whether he remembers this or not. He’ll have a book to thumb through. He’ll have crowds of fans to dream of this character for him.

Instead of admitting the temporary status of his stay, Pete returns to his task of opening the toys he’d bought. New tremors in his hands and fingers make it more difficult than it need be, though, and he tries to ignore any reason why.

“I’m glad he missed,” he says, distracting himself and drawing Patrick’s attention away from the rubber duck— back in his hand with a soft  _squeak_ that somehow manages to sound sad. “Was he the only one who tried to hurt you like that? Out of everyone you met?”

Patrick shrugs, poking at the duck’s bill with a sharpened nail. “More or less. From my understanding, most of the others are more interested in adding me to a museum or some collection.”

Pete bites his bottom lip to keep from asking the stars what Patrick did to deserve such a life— a life of hiding and running and collecting nightmare after nightmare. Attacked and traumatized, hated and hunted. In the light of Patrick’s ever-expanding story, Pete’s fears seem small.

“You need to be careful,” he says, whispering because hiding his voice is better than having Patrick hear the way it would undoubtedly shake. “We… Humans have more weapons like guns and we can be dangerous. I don’t want them to get you.”

Time has held its breath for long enough. When Patrick’s expression eases into something soft, when he tilts his head to the side and drops the duck carefully into the bath, time takes hold of Pete’s heart and they both race at an erratic pace.

“More than a few people have tried to capture me.” Patrick’s voice seeps into Pete’s mind, stilling the demons like a sedation or an antidote. “But the only one who’s succeeded is you.”


	11. Realism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that edit! It's lovely and I love it. @ soulpunkpatrick on Wattpad unexpectedly gifted it to me and my stone cold heart has been warmed ever since <3
> 
> Beta'd by chaotic-panda, whom I cherish dearly

 

_~_

_re·al·ism_

_noun_

_(in art and literature) the movement or style of representing familiar things as they actually are  
_

 

Patrick’s tales only come about every two or three days and never with a warning— stories about Roy, mermonsters, his time at the beach and, if he’s particularly tired, his interactions with the stars. Sometimes, they’re prompted by questions from Pete-- by a pen in a writer’s hand and years of secrets in a siren’s head.

Pete writes them in every true way he knows, bleeding emotion onto a page and using Patrick’s tears as ink. It feels as if it should be cruel, exploitative even, but Patrick’s known from the start that Pete would do this. And his smile when Pete turns to a fresh page is more than enough permission— wary as it is.

The stories, too, ease the mermonsters— at least the ones in Pete’s mind. At the worst of times, the creatures are like the needle of a compass, swinging aimlessly in search of something Pete couldn’t explain. Seeking, shifting, spinning in ways that cause his mind to ache and throb— ways which make sleep more than a foreign concept but less than ideal. Discombobulated and disorganized, they shift.

Until they hear Patrick speak. Like a true north, they seize on his voice with a fearful force, gathered at the front of Pete’s mind but still— so still. Listening with the occasional cackle, the odd comment on how Pete would be better off without this creature in his home. Yes, they still scream and laugh and howl but it’s in a unison monsters should never have. A symmetry, Pete feels. An ease.

Perhaps he should be afraid of this, worried that they sense something he can’t. For a few days, he lets these concerns consume him. Do they hear something in Patrick’s words to help them attack the siren? Do they understand the fear in Pete’s tone when he asks his questions?

Or are they clever enough to know what’s beneath each conversation? Have they guessed yet the protection Pete promises Patrick, the way he burns with rage at every unjust action in the siren’s life? Do they feel what Pete feels when he tells Patrick as much?

Pete puts his pen down for the night, seated at his writing desk as Patrick sleeps.

Can they make out the words he’s writing from the  _scritch-scratch-scritch_ of his pencil against a page?

As he balls up another paper and tosses it into the trash, Pete desperately hopes they can’t.

~

The thing about having Patrick is that it gives Pete a muse. The thing about a muse is that it gives Pete inspiration, motivation, creation, and desire all at once.

The thing about this is that Pete’s book is nearly done within a month.

Now, granted, it’s not all Patrick’s fault. Pete came here because he knew he’d have the time and boredom, knew he’d have no choice but to write a couple thousand words a day. It’s just that Patrick took the goal and twisted its straightforwardness into the shape of a hook, slowing Pete down when the last few chapters near.

Slow, slow, and slower. He goes from a few thousand a day to a few hundred until he’s lucky to hit fifty in one night. He still scrawls in a notebook when Patrick speaks, still drowns out the monsters with the gentle timbre of Patrick’s voice, but he doesn’t use it in his books.

_I used to waste my time dreaming of being alive._

_Now, I only waste it dreaming of him._

The last sentences he’s written hangs hauntingly on the page, daring him to continue, daring him to write out THE END.

Daring him to say there’s an ending at all.

But it’s a rough draft, he tells himself one quiet morning. Patrick had fallen asleep with washable marker scribbled across his body— an attempt to recreate Pete’s tattoos. It had been an interesting activity, Patrick drawing intricate shapes on his own arms as Pete held his breath and lightly pressed the tip of a dark blue marker to the place above Patrick’s tail, tracing out his most infamous tattoo. Patrick’s tail is just a tail and he hadn’t understood the strange blush on Pete’s cheeks when he asked him to draw above it. Pete hadn’t known how to explain how intimate it would have been if Patrick were a human.

Patrick hadn’t told him a story that night but Pete memorized every sound from his lips all the same. For all his tragedy, Patrick’s laughter always fills the room with the light of an exploding star.

Not, he thinks, that Pete plans on writing any of that. One more word on his page? One more page in his book? One less sentence left between him and the siren.

Pete bites his lip as dawn creeps in through the cracks of doorways and curtains, spilling into the room with a steady slowness. Slower than it has before but quicker than Pete’s been writing these past few days. The light crawls across the floor, stretching like a cat preparing for a nap. Pete watches, breath caught in his throat, as it finally comes to rest on the dresser beside his bed— a place he hasn’t slept in since the beginning of the month.

The bed, though, is not what draws him forward.

He’d shut his phone off upon arriving and he’d told everyone to leave him alone. His agent, though, must be losing her mind. To not hear any updates or plans? Pete knows she’ll fly down here herself to drag the book from his hands.

Unless he tells her he’s done. Unless he tells her he’s on the verge of something wonderful and can’t afford to leave. Unless he begs and pleads and tells her that he’s found something to protect, something to care for, something that might be killed should he leave.

Another season, another year, maybe the rest of his life. Pete’s mind buzzes with the mermonsters’ interest as he opens the dresser drawer, imagining all the excuses he’ll give when his agent demands he return at the end of summer as he promised he’d do. He connects his phone to a charger and waits for it to turn on. Impatience in his stomach bubbles, not unlike the rising voices of the mermonsters when they hear the sharp bells signaling his phone’s been turned on.

_What are you doing what are you doing what are you doing what—_

Pete ignores them and unlocks the phone. He presses his contacts without thinking, already searching for his agent’s name.

But then notifications light up his screen— one right after the other. Missed calls from friends and acquaintances, texts in all-caps from his agent. Nothing of consequence, nothing he’d feel bad for deleting.

Except for the text from his mother. Sent the night before with a handful of missed calls connected to it, her text is as straight to the point as she’d always been.

**Call me** , it says, causing Pete’s heart to drop.  **Something’s happened**.

~

Pete doesn’t sleep that day, mermonsters granting him no peace from their questions and false concerns. His pacing and heavy breaths have alerted them to the anxieties rolling around his skin like drops of water. By the time Patrick awakes with telltale splashes, Pete’s mouth and pens have long dried out, the phone still warm from the hours of conversation he’d had with his mom.

Thankfully, Patrick takes longer than a while to fully wake, like a computer booting up. He blinks as Pete steps into the room, the softest of smiles spreading across his lips. He sits up, rubbing at his eyes, and Pete ignores the chill he feels when Patrick does so without a wince. Ink still stains his skin in the shape of childish tattoos, refusing to slip into the water the way the package had promised. Pete rubs the side of his hand, thoughtlessly stroking the lead left there.

“Let me get started on changing your bandages,” he says instead of his usual question of nightmares and dreams. Patrick’s eyebrows furrow together briefly but he nods, pulling himself further out of the water until Pete has full access to the wound on his side.

For once, without Patrick’s nightmares invited into the conversation, no one speaks as night begins to fall.

Patrick hums an eerie tune as Pete works on opening the first aid kit. He’s become braver with the melodies over time, never singing but always threatening the air with the chance he might. Pete glances up at Patrick’s face, his eyebrows pinched in thought as he does so. He’s never asked Patrick why he sang that night, why he traded his safety for a few meager hours of companionship. It’d be another dangerous question to venture into, another one with no definite ending, but he can’t bring himself to dirty the air with such darkness. Not when there are already so many shadows slithering through his mind.

Patrick’s eyes meet Pete’s, the siren still humming. Pete’s always admired the gold within them but, tonight, all he sees are the waves of the ocean Patrick calls his home.

“Is something wrong?” Patrick asks. It’s a harsh cut through the song he’d been humming but at least it carries some of the youthful innocence Pete had once associated him with. At least he doesn’t truly sound afraid.

“Oh, no,” Pete says, fumbling for words and a way to open the first aid pack without revealing how much his hands are trembling. “Well, I mean. Maybe. But not in the… not in the sense that you’d think. Just some news from my mom, that’s all.”

Patrick’s head tilts to the side, his flicking tail going still as Pete finally opens the kit to retrieve bandages and gauze. He waits to speak, tongue crossing his lips again and again until Pete’s kneeling beside him. “Your mom? You have not mentioned her before.”

Pete scoffs, an easier option than laughing. “I never had reason to. We haven’t spoken for a while. But she still keeps me in the family loop, no matter how hard I try to pull free from it. Her news comes from a good place, I think.”

Patrick lifts his hand form the water, brushing it gently down Pete’s arm.

“What did she say?”

Pete swallows down his answer, ignoring their sharp edges and bitter tones. It’s easier to be silent. It’s easier to keep Patrick’s eyes soft and his sense of safety intact. It’s easier to pretend he has no news at all.

In his mind, the mermonsters repeat the phone call back to him. They’re cruel creatures in that way but Pete’s known this. Their joy in his sorrow is no surprise.

Pete finds his voice, his words broken shards.

Just like that knife he left by the sea.

“Pete,” Patrick says, soft yet stern. “Tell me.”

“Let me finish this first,” Pete says, whispers. “Let me… Let me focus on fixing you, okay? I need… I need something to focus on for a bit. Something I can do— something I can  _fix,_ dammit.”

Patrick gasps a sharp breath and Pete bites back his own exhale. He hadn’t meant to curse, hadn’t meant to speak so harshly. Before he can take it back or try to form a half-honest apology, Patrick’s eyes darken and his mouth closes with a click of his teeth. He shuts down, shuts off, like it’s the only thing he knows how to do in an unfair situation— because, Pete knows, his life is one big unfair situation and being alone for so long certainly never taught him the best coping mechanisms.

Pete sighs and kneels by the tub. Patrick looks away, muscles tight when Pete peels off the bandage.

He only looks back over when Pete gasps— when Pete sees the wound’s progress and understands how little time is left before it’s fully healed. It’s not perfect yet but the tissue Pete had seen forming over the past few weeks has grown stronger, more formidable, and it’ll only be a week or so until all that’s left is a red scar down Patrick’s side.

And an empty bathtub in Pete’s home.

“You heal quickly.” Pete’s words are hardly a breath, barely rippling across the water's surface, but it’s more than enough to cause the mermonsters’ voices to dance with the crazed tone Pete’s grown to know all too well. He reaches out towards the wound, pulling back at the last second. Patrick looks over, eyes still dulled with a bitter smile on his face.

“It would be faster outside,” Patrick says. “With nothing to block the light of the stars and with the saltwater of my home… It may be cursed by the moon but the salt has always eased the pain of my people’s wounds. And you wonder why I asked you to take me back to the ocean.”

Pete’s blood goes cold. He’s not sure if it’s from the cheering of the monsters or the thought of releasing Patrick back into the waters outside. He could get hurt. He could be killed.

He could swim away and never return.

Pete’s never been good with the people he cares about. He always needs too much and too little at once, never giving into how he feels and sure as hell never showing it. He needs people more than they need him but the crowds still crave in a way he can never return. Not until they’ve moved on to the next fad, the next headline, and his fingertips itch with the urge to claw at their backs so they’re forced to face him again. Violent enough to throw his fist through a car window after one too many lies; soft enough to feel bad for the glass he shatters.

Violent enough to wish he could leave Patrick to the ocean without a word; soft enough to know he could never perform such an act. Be it protection or friendship or some other unnamed thing, he knows Patrick’s life is too closely tied to his own to ever part ways in such a cold-hearted fashion. As insane as it is, he keeps things interesting. As strange as it sounds, he keeps Pete afloat.

_Take me back to the ocean_

The last part of Patrick’s statement hangs in the air. Hauntingly so.

“She wants me to go back,” Pete spits like it’s the words to an exorcism. “My sister got in a car wreck and she’s in the hospital and god knows where Andrew is so… My mom needs someone with her. She’s sick— nothing bad, just frailer than she used to be— and she needs someone. Hillary would take care of it but she’s hurt and she’s on bedrest and. She needs me.”

It’s a lot and Pete knows it but, cruelly, he justifies it with the fact that Patrick’s spilled so much more onto his shoulders.

“Oh,” Patrick says, face somehow appearing more blank than before. “So then…”

“I— I told her I couldn’t.” Pete swallows, looking away from Patrick’s widened eyes. Hope? Shock? Disappointment? Pete doesn’t care to guess. “Not now, anyway. Not if you need me.”

Patrick’s lips purse. He looks away, squirming in an embarrassed manner.

“You know, if you go, the distance between you and the monsters will be too much. They will lose their control. I should have told you… I could have told you but you seemed to have had your mind made up on staying here.” Patrick turns his head sharply, looking at Pete with eyes as electric as lightning. “I would not blame you if you go. If I could see my mother again… I would give anything.”

“I know,” Pete breathes, so much more quiet than the gloating voices in his mind. He hates them, he  _hates_ them. “But I want to stay if that’s okay with you. Until your injury is healed, at least.”

Patrick blinks. “I heal quickly.” It’s not a push for him to leave but it’s not a meaningless detail, either. It’s a reminder, a soft statement. It’s as if Patrick’s speaking to himself.

Pete swallows. Why must his words always disappear around this being?

“I know,” he says again, head dipping down to hide the heat on his cheeks. The air grows cold, colder than it’s ever been. “I know.”


	12. Poetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> S/O to the_chaotic_panda for beta'ing. Really, she's so much help. I have never edited a chapter as much as I have edited this one lol
> 
> Also S/O to that other amazing person who helped me figure out the proper way to feed a siren Patrick. (and while you're here, what did the egg say to the boiling water??)

_po·et·ry_

_noun_

_literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm_

That night, there’s only one more chapter left. That night, Pete feels his words begin to dwindle.

That night, Pete can’t decide between a sad or happy ending.

He’d told Patrick about his mother, about how her hands shake from age and how her lungs hurt from the city apartment she’s cooped herself in. He’d told him about his sister, about the broken bones and stitched-up skin his mother had described. He told him about his brother, about how he’s been gone more days this year than he’d been home and how he’s younger but still manages to make Pete feel so small.

He’d spilled every busted word from his throat, bleeding it into the air as if the poison might finally slip out. He’d barely had time to breathe from how quickly he found himself venting.

And Patrick had listened to every syllable Pete uttered. His unblinking gaze and partially parted lips were more than enough to drown out the cacophony in Pete’s mind— one that wasn’t solely created by the creatures within.

Pete had told everything— everything but his own near encounters with death and pain, a story he’s shared too many times to count— and Patrick, for once, had nothing to say in return. No tales about his own parents— parents that sang and danced and raced him around the castle, Pete’s heard him say before. No details about his own brother and sister— older and stronger, bullies one day but best friends the next, the only two in the world who ever shared the exact same smile as him. No discussion on friends or strangers or acquaintances. Nothing Patrick usually likes to say.

Just a nod, as soft as the words were hard to speak. Just a hand over Pete’s— one shaking and one steady, a reversal of roles for just one moment.

Just Patrick’s whisper, the only time he spoke.

“They’re your family and you can’t help missing them,” he’d said. “Just don’t forget they’re lucky to have you, too.”

Lucky. Twice, Patrick’s used that word for him. Pete could ponder on the meaning for hours.

Instead, as dawn awakes, he takes his time to scrawl it across a blank piece of paper.

_Lucky_

A title for a book without an ending. A summary but also a lie.

He feels crazy but, really, the crazy thing’s this: the situation’s only crazy while Pete’s writing it.

And the story’s only sane if Pete reads it over in Patrick’s presence.

Writing is too much like reality and Pete is reminded with every twist of his pen, every tap on the typewriter keys, that he is an author of truth, of fact. He has bled verisimilitude in ways others laugh out lies, fables and tales meant to dazzle eyes and create idols in place of thoughts. Books meant for silver screens and manic dreams.

Pete’s words were only ever meant to be screamed, not recited— hidden, never performed. Don’t the readers know they’re feasting on death? Don’t the hot shot producers and actors know they’re staging a funeral pyre?

Vultures, the lot of them.

So, it goes, his writing only feels insane when he writes of sirens and mythical voices in his head. He wonders what metaphors they’ll pull from this, what theories they’ll create.  _Don’t tap on the glass of my skull_ , he thinks.  _Monsters live inside_.

But when he recites passages like actors do, when he laughs about pretentious phrases and purple prose to a siren in the bath, it doesn’t feel like a metaphor. It doesn’t seem symbolic.

It’s the truth in its purest form. Raw and detailed, coming apart with every stitch they’ll put into the spine of this book if it’s written.

When it’s written.

When.

_When_ , because Pete knows there’s one more chapter left. He’s stretched scenes like taffy, yanking them into exposition his editor will tear out with ropes of red ink. He’s all but begged for Patrick to tell him more, to give him more, to be the gift that keeps on giving— whether that comes in the form of words or his presence, Pete can’t tell anymore.

But there’s one more chapter left. The way a singer knows there’s just the final verse to go, the way an actor glances at the last page of a script, the way a siren knows his wound is healed… Pete knows there’s one more chapter left.

And he can’t think of an ending.

Endings are usually his strong suit. They’re the place where he can pretend Happily Ever After exists, where he can tie in all his musings and paint them as morals. Endings mean he’s finished a period of his life, another area to move on from.

Here, though, seated on the bathroom floor as sunshine leaks in through the windows? Now, though, with a sleeping siren before him and restless creatures within him?

Here? Now?

His fingers don’t itch for a pen. His ears don’t crave the sound of a typewriter’s keys.

The crazy thing’s this: Pete’s a writer and his notebooks are his treasure.

The crazy thing’s this: it doesn’t stop him from wrapping his fingers around the corners of the last few pages— blank as the day it was bought.

It doesn’t stop him from tearing them out, the monsters in his mind scurrying into darkened corners at the violent sound. He tosses the notebook to one side and the pages to another.

He’s a writer and endings are his favorite. This time, though? He doesn’t want to write how the story ends; he doesn’t want to admit that it will.

This— a siren in a bathtub and monstrous voices in a writer’s mind— can’t be it. This isn’t right and it isn’t fair and isn’t poetic in any sense.

This isn’t how the story ends and Pete’s mind has been searching for the right details to change, the correct words to place. How many times can a story’s ending be switched? Be rewritten? Once, twice, three times? Like a remix to a song, like a commitment to change everything so that only the best parts remain the same.

Patrick’s a siren with only one song— a song Pete’s pressed close to his chest and held tightly though Patrick’s warned him not to. One song can be many, with enough effort. He’ll change it, remix it, burn it onto every scratched disk he knows so it’s never once the same. He’ll never find a reason to share the endings he’s found.

_I hate you_ , he thinks, at last, unsure of who he’s thinking it towards.  _My world, my life, isn’t my own anymore, is it? It isn’t the way it was. I shouldn’t want to stay and I shouldn’t choose this over my family. But I am here. And I think I hate you for it. I think…_

“I hate you.” His face burns and his hands form fists. The mermonsters rejoin him, rejoice around his proclamation, but it doesn’t keep him from his thoughts. “I should hate you.”

Perhaps he should.

But

The crazy thing’s this:

When Pete falls asleep on a cold bathroom floor, icy tiles hidden by a fraying towel, it’s with the question of how it would feel to have Patrick curled around him this time.

~

Pete wakes slowly, blinking in the lights he forgot to switch off and waiting for the gears in his mind to unstick. A nightmare, a taunt, rests on the horizon of his brain, forgotten but for one question wrapped in cruel curiosity.

_Who could you possibly protect?_

“I can protect him,” Pete whispers, chills dripping down his spine as he directly answers the monsters for the first time. They pull free from his skull like shadows slipping off a wall, gathering in the core of his thoughts and screaming their question.  _Who could you protect?_

Pete clears his throat. He tries not to feel the fear he’s been pushing down the past few days.

“I can protect  _him_ ,” he says again, still a whisper but enough to send the monsters shouting. “I have protected him. Your question means nothing.”

_How long? At what cost?_

“What?”

_What will you sacrifice for him?_

Pete’s hand is at his own throat in a heartbeat, reaching for a necklace that isn’t there. Blunt nails press against the soft skin, the tan warmth and cool ink, and remind him of what he’s lost.

With a scoff, Pete drops his hand and pretends he isn’t shaking— pretends the movement was his own choice. “I have given enough.”

_You think that now but you do not know what is coming. He will be brought to us eventually and—_

“Enough.” Patrick stirs in his sleep at the volume of Pete’s voice, forehead creasing in thought and tail flicking sporadically for a few seconds. Pete pushes towards the side of the tub, glaring into the water as if he may see a mermonster hiding within. “I said enough. Leave us alone.” It’s a whisper but it’s also a demand.

Silence rests within Pete’s mind once more. It’s temporary, painfully so, but Pete accepts it while it’s here.

As shifting water and soft breaths fill the air instead, Pete brings his gaze up to the siren still sleeping peacefully in the mock waves. He’s curled on his side, pressed against the tub in a way that must be uncomfortable, and it’s nothing different from how he’s slept every day he’s been here.

Still, something in Pete’s mind catches onto it in ways it hadn’t before. Like new pieces of his brain becoming active, logging on with bright lights and sparking wires, something about the sight sends unused neurons into action.

Pete’s known of Patrick’s strange beauty before, had noticed it the first night they met and tripped over it every time they spoke. Even now, captured by bathwater and dull lights, the siren is ethereal. Gold shines from his hair, swaying in the water, and the scales on his tail seem to glow. In moments like this, when he wakes first and has no more words to write, Pete would take his time appreciating and questioning the sight before him. Tails and scales and fangs and claws taking his breath away in a manner he knows must be insane.

Tonight, though, Pete swallows thickly and can only imagine how much more lovely Patrick must look while in the waters of his home. Surrounded by the matching tempestuous blue of the ocean, Patrick’s eyes must gleam. Covered by night’s silken shades and caressed by the stars’ kisses, Patrick must appear blessed.

With the space to swim and sink into the deepest parts of the waves, Patrick must be like every legend told of sirens— impossibly tempting, fated to drag skipping hearts into the sea.

No.

Pete shakes his head at the same moment Patrick’s breaths extend into sighs and those ocean eyes blink open.

He’s not a monster and those stories are lies. Patrick can’t speak of harming others without a sob caught in his throat. Patrick can’t tempt men or women without fearing they’ll harm him.

And Patrick can’t go back to the ocean without Pete knowing for a fact that it’s the right decision.

Patrick smiles at Pete as sleep finally trickles away. Though he smiles in return, Pete’s reminded of Patrick’s admission that, here, he is nothing other than captured.

Protection versus freedom. What weighs more? Which lasts longer? Who is Pete to decide?

All questions with answers Pete’s already chosen not to write.

Pete’s heart beats so fast he can barely breathe, racing in time with the questions placed before him in the past few moments. Questions leaked from treacherous lips, unseen enemies, and those posed by his own traitorous mind. A deluded idea takes place in his thoughts and he wonders if Patrick has the answers.

By the time Patrick’s fully awake, though, the questions taste sour on his tongue and, besides, he’s too busy tucking away the guilty relief he feels when Patrick winces as he sits up.

"I thought it was healing," Pete says, his eyebrows pinched together as Patrick shrugs in an almost embarrassed manner. The siren says nothing and Pete sighs, pushing on. "You said you heal quickly."

"I do," Patrick says, rolling his eyes and stretching his tail out with a grimace. "And I will. It'll be healed by the time you finish your book, I am sure. Just..." He trails off, lips shutting in a tight frown. 

"Just what?" Pete asks a moment later when he has the first aid kit and Patrick still hasn't spoken. Patrick's head jerks up, lost in thought, and he meets Pete's eyes with a small gasp.

"Sorry, I was only thinking. My dream... You were in it." It's enough for Pete's own eyes to widen a fraction but he knows bait when he sees it, waving off the words for another time.

"Patrick." He fashions his lips into what he hopes is an encouraging smile. It feels more hopeful than anything, a shameful expression reminding him how selfish he's acting. "The healing?"

Patrick sighs, shaking his head in a manner that throws his hair into his face-- a manner that has Pete's smile feeling a bit more on the genuine side. 

"Oh, fine," he says, tail flapping irritatedly. "I suppose there is no reason to keep it secret-- the monsters might have guessed by now." Another sigh, followed by a soft gasp when Pete begins to work on the bandages. "I will heal quicker than any human could and it will not take more than a week or two. The only thing is that... Well, it would only take a day or two more if I were as strong as I am supposed to be."

Pete furrows his eyebrows together, tossing the old bandages into the trash and wiping his hands on the towel. "Stronger?"

"Yes," Patrick says, turning his head with pink cheeks. "You know, being here has made me weak. It is hard to sleep for very long and not to mention how hollow I feel without--"

_"Shit_ ," Pete interrupts, dropping the kit back into his lap and looking at Patrick with a pale face. "Holy fucking shit, you need to eat, don't you? I've been starving a fucking siren in my bathtub, oh my god, no wonder you think you're captured, oh my  _fuck_." Pete's barely aware of what he's saying, only certain that Patrick's going to accuse him of torture and Pete's not going to have any form of defense prepared. What sort of idiot forgets to feed someone?

"Pete, Pete, no!" Patrick says, interrupting Pete's thoughts with far more grace than Pete had interrupted his words. "I do not-- Sirens do not eat. Not really, not for survival. For celebrations and gatherings, I suppose, but it is not a necessity." Patrick smiles, though it does little to put Pete at ease. "I was going to say I miss the stars. I already said they are a life source, yes? They... Their light is my food. Well, not entirely, but that is how I imagine a human would understand it. I have enough of their light in me to keep me alive but to also aid in the healing? Well, that would be asking too much."

At last, Pete's breathing calms to a natural rate. "Oh. Oh, thank god." He cracks a smile, even as another question makes its way to his throat. "What happens if you run out of their light entirely?"

Like sun slipping away from the day, Patrick's smile drops. "That will not happen. Not if I go back to the ocean in time."

Again, Pete's blood runs cold and no siren smile is going to calm the tension pumping through his veins.

"Oh," he says, voice dropping to a murmur. "Alright."

Silence gives room for monsters to dance but Pete’s all out of words. His breath trembles as he imagines things to say, harmless questions to ask, but everything sticks to the roof of his mouth, clogging his throat until he’s certain he’s gone mute.

It’s when Pete’s sticking on the last bandage that Patrick speaks.

“Let me tell you about my dream,” he says. In times like these, Pete can never tell if Patrick's unaware of the awkward air or if he's simply a master at transitioning away from it. “The monsters were gone but… you were there. We were by those rocks again, like we used to be, and we were playing with your star necklace. It was strange, I think. The water was hot but not because of my doing… It just kept burning me on its own but when you dipped your necklace into the water, everything was better.” Patrick pauses, sighing when Pete’s finished with the bandaging. “Does it sound like it means anything?”

Pete shrugs, an answer simmering beneath his skin as he places the first aid kit away.

_What will you sacrifice for him?_

“I’m a writer so I’m always gonna pretend like dreams mean something,” he says.

“Really?” Patrick asks, eyes lighting up. His tail splashes in the water, as childish as he could be. “What does it sound like?”

“It sounds like I lost my charm when I saved you and you’re just now recognizing that.” Pete’s guilt returns tenfold when Patrick’s smile falls, his tail drooping like a puppy that’s been kicked for its excitement. The feeling burns hot in his veins but he can’t bring himself to take them back, to apologize for saying the truth— even if he did so in a thoughtless way.

Besides, he has monsters in his mind. He’s blamed his faults on such things many times, long before he met Patrick and his demons.

“Oh,” Patrick says. “If— When I get back to the ocean, I can look for it for you?”

“That would be nice but--” Pete cuts off, looking away from Patrick's sorry eyes. Sorry, why does he look so sorry? Surely, Pete's words can't have such an effect on him? No, of course not. “Patrick, by the time I put you back, it’ll be time for me to leave, anyway.”

“Oh… right." Patrick bites his lip, still seeming lost in thought. "What it--"

“It was a dream, don't worry about it. Besides, I've already forgotten about the necklace. It doesn't... It doesn't matter anymore. Just leave it alone." 

Patrick’s expression closes up, shuts itself away, and Pete’s left with something hot in his gut. Did the words come out wrong again? Did he yell? Did he snap? No, he couldn't have. He wouldn't have.

Would he?

“What did you dream about?” More than an attempt to change the subject but far less than friendly conversation, Patrick’s eyes burn into Pete’s when he asks the question. “And what would a writer imagine it to mean?”

“I didn’t dream of anything, so, I mean, nothing to interpret there.” Pete dries his hands with the towel he slept on, matching Patrick’s gaze with something akin to a dare— or, it feels, something even more than that. Something Pete’s never before been part of, anyway.

Patrick’s eyebrows raise, traces of vitriol fading from his eyes. “Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Pete says with a sharp nod. “Well, nothing I can remember.”

“Oh.” Patrick pauses, eyes falling to where Pete toys with the collar of his shirt, rubbing the edge of the cloth as if it can ever take the place of what once was there. A second passes, a moment of wondering what constitutes a sacrifice. “You did not sleep long enough. That must be why.”

Pete’s hand stills, his eyebrows coming together at Patrick’s words. “Wh— How would you know that? You went to sleep before I did and didn’t wake up until after.” Perhaps that’s the answer, Pete considers. Patrick hasn’t seen him sleep, however—

“Your hands,” Patrick says, nodding towards them. “They shake whenever you are exhausted.”

Pete looks down to his own hands, dropping them into his lap and suddenly noticing the trembles in them. His eyes widen, a mere fraction, and he fails to name the feeling in his gut at the thought that Patrick noticed such a thing without hesitation.

“I guess they do,” he says, softly folding his hands into fists. “I never realized.”

Anyone else might have been embarrassed but Patrick merely smiles at Pete’s words, his response a happy laugh. “Well, I  _have_ been here a long time. I was bound to notice a few things.”

Pete licks his lips, mouth suddenly dry. Is this Patrick’s way of asking to go home? His hint that he’s had enough of Pete’s protection, Pete’s presence? He'll be gone within the week, won't he? Why is that knowledge not enough for him? Does he hate it here so much? Does he hate Pete? 

Questions Pete dares not ask, dares not think about for too long lest he goes insane. “Right.”

“What were you doing? Instead of sleeping?” Patrick asks, unaware of the thoughts pounding against Pete’s skull, the murky misty depths becoming home to monstrous things. Pete pastes on a smile, pretends his hands are only shaking from lack of sleep.

“Writing.” He waits for a beat, considering his words with a tilt of his head, before continuing. “The book’s nearly done.”

“Really?” Patrick’s smile razes through Pete’s mind, tearing through thoughts and fears like a village on fire. “I am happy for you!”

“Don't be,” Pete snaps before he can stop himself. Patrick’s smile flickers. “I— I mean, I just—”

“I thought you would be happy to finish your book,” Patrick says. Innocent, so believably innocent. 

“You sound like you’re ready for me to pack up and go.” Heat rests in Pete's blood, on his tongue, and he wonders what would happen if he sounded as desperate as he feels. Patrick flinches and Pete looks away, biting down on his cheek until he fears the skin will break.

He wonders what would happen if he knew why he felt such desperation at all.

Really, why is he so upset? Why do the words of a siren bring so much emotion to his lips? What right does he have to pull on Pete’s feelings in such a manner? What right does he have to evoke such anger?

“I merely thought—” Patrick cuts off, eyebrows drawing together and breaths becoming irritated huffs. “You are a writer. Do you not take joy in your task?”

“Of course I do,” Pete says, pleads, trying to make Patrick understand something-- anything, a human thing. He tries to hold back the feelings clawing up his throat but Patrick’s questioning too much, growing too close to the thoughts Pete’s been trying to hide from. “The only reason I came here was to write.”

“I know. You told me.” Patrick’s responses are short, clipped and dangerous. Pete’s lips twitch— not nearly enough to pass as a smile but maybe fitting the description of a smirk— and he wonders what would happen if Patrick’s eyes flashed golden like they did the night those monsters tried to make Pete kill him. “You can go home. You can see your mother and you can—”

“What? Leave you to the mermonsters and let them do what they will? I have them in my mind, Patrick, you don’t know what they—”

“I have them in my dreams! Maybe not every time I sleep but often enough that I know what they wish to do.” Is it Pete’s imagination or is the yellow in Patrick’s eyes spreading? He hopes so; he hopes not. “What concern is it of yours, anyway? Why do you care what happens once you are gone?”

“I don—” It’s a lie and Patrick knows before the word is out, if the way his eyebrow raises is any indication. Pete drops the phrase and turns his head, drawing blood when he bites down on his cheek this time. “We’re friends, right? Forgive me for… for  _wondering_ what will happen.”

“Forgive me for wanting some trust,” Patrick shoots back. “I have evaded them for years. This time will be no different.”

Pete swallows, something stinging his eyes. Hate? Frustration? Complete and total terror?

_This time, they know where you are._

_This time, you are wounded._

_This time, you’ll be all alone._

“Besides,” Patrick continues, proving that, for all he acts like it, he can't truly read Pete's mind, “you will forget about me by the time you have returned to the city. So, I ask again, what concern of it is yours?”

For a heartbeat, Patrick’s right. He’s a siren and Pete’s a human, two beings never meant to meet. He’s a creature of the ocean— the unknown and mysterious— and Pete’s only ever lived surrounded by four walls.

He’s a prince and Pete’s… Pete’s just a writer.

But

Patrick’s also the most amazing being Pete’s ever met, magic and humanity wrapped up in something impossible.

Patrick’s the reason for Pete’s story, a muse and an inspiration.

Patrick’s a friend

He’s a companion

He’s closer than anyone’s ever come, he’s—

He’s…

Pete stands, unaware that he’s made the choice until he’s on his feet and Patrick’s gasp has filled his ears. He’s abrupt in his actions, stumbling back with heavy breaths and heavier thoughts collapsing in on his mind.

What concern of it is his? If Pete had more time, maybe he’d be able to explain. Now, though, his head is falling apart in ways he feels will never mend. Questions and answers and fears and assertions. Monsters and humans and sirens and—

What does it matter? Why does it matter? Why does  _he_ matter?

Patrick, with the scales and tail and claws and fangs. Pete must be insane to feel such striking terror at the thought of leaving him alone but he’s never been one to reject the truth.

“Pete…?”

All at once, looking down at the creature— scaled and blue-eyed and clawed and  _beautiful_ — Pete’s world shatters and comes together. It mends and breaks and bends and heals.

What does it matter?

Why does it matter?

Why does he matter?

Because he…

Pete turns and storms away from the siren.

"I'll take you back before the week is through," he says. "If that is what you want, I'll do it."

The door shuts on Patrick's angered reply and Pete runs as far away as he can from the sound. Away from the confusion he brings, away from his impending absence. Away from it all.

But never away from his thoughts.


	13. Confessional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revelations of a person's deeper or darker motivations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the amazing the_chaotic_panda

 

_confessional_

_a first-person style that is often presented as an ongoing diary or letters, distinguished by revelations of a person's deeper or darker motivations_

Pete’s day is restless and, consequently, the following night is the same. Each hour feels shorter than the last, dripping off the clock with a sticky kind of glee. Fingerprint minutes press against the window in the shape of a fading sun. Soft seconds slip from Pete’s grasp with the elusiveness of soap suds— good and clean but bitter and impossible if he tries to hold onto them for too long.

As night falls, he waits, almost hoping for a whisper from the bathroom— laughter or perhaps a cursing of his name. But it’s silent— so silent. Even the monsters in his mind circle his thoughts unresponsively and, though he’s only seen them in imagination, Pete can almost feel the weight of their eyes on him like blind, crawling ants.

 _Stop that_ , he tells himself sternly, sitting with his back pressed against his bedroom wall.  _You’re acting as irrational as everyone claims you are._

Still, the minutes drag on and Pete’s breaths expand to thunderous sighs filling the room like oversized balloons. The mermonsters listen closely in his head, lined along the edges as if attempting to decode a secret message.

“Curious today, are we?” Pete asks, only for them to shriek their way back into the shadows like rats suddenly exposed to light.

_We heard you are bringing the siren. A good choice. A smart choice. Go home, soon, human. We will leave. We will be gone and the prince will be—_

“Shut up.” The words pull involuntarily from his throat as Pete jerks his head to the side— all his choice but not his conscious doing. He’s been on edge since the… the  _discussion_  with Patrick and the monsters’ words are far from helpful. Not that there has been anything helpful around here. It’s all so messed up and Pete smiles like it’s funny. “No matter what happens, he’s still a siren and that means he has more power than you.”

 _Believe what you will but we have the truth_ , the creatures say, more curtly than they’ve ever spoken before.  _You cannot protect him forever. You will leave, sooner or later. We promise_.

Pete’s lips press tightly together. He doesn’t entertain their words with a further response, brushing off their sniggers-- scratched and hushed but leaking through his thoughts all the same. The sound brings a scowl to his face. When had their presence in his mind expanded so far? It began with dreams and whispers, the odd chuckle here and there, with only one full attack to concern him. But, now? Conversations and constant commentary? A smiling quietness that hadn’t been there before? The quiet contempt grows more unnerving with each day. As if they’re… planning. Scheming.

Preparing.

Pete pushes the thought away and rests his head back against the wall.

The moon rises with a light that drowns out the stars. It’s welcomed by the subtle shifts of water swaying back and forth as Patrick wakes.

Pete smiles softly at nothing in particular; he shuts his eyes before they have a chance to tempt him with the sight of the bathroom door.

Moments pass like this. Little splashes and quiet breaths, heard only because the silence of the house dares to emphasize each sound. Water trickling through the air on soundwaves meant to shut the monsters up, keep them hidden because they can’t see what their prey is doing.

Pete can’t, either, but that doesn’t stop him from imagining. Patrick twisting and turning as he opens his eyes, trying to keep quiet but too clumsy to do so properly. Somehow, he’s short— small, little? — enough to fit in the bath but his tail extends over the edge in a manner he often jokes about. Never complains, never whines. Just… comments.

“I never realized how much space I have out there,” he’d said one time while rubbing at the sore muscles beneath his scales. “I had always thought the beach small but at least it gave me the chance to swim around.”

Twisting, turning, trembling thoughts enter Pete’s mind, repeating what he’d been thinking before. He promised to take Patrick back soon, swore that he would if the siren wished. How horrible does it make him if he longs to keep Patrick here, keep Patrick near? Away from the monsters with needle-teeth and cursed blades? Away from the dangers and promised fates? If Patrick stays, he’s safe. He’s alive. He’s close.

He’s a reason for Pete to stay, too.

Again, guilt and shame and anger coil in his gut like the voices in his mind. His mother’s voice, now, plays through his thoughts, her words telling him he needs to come home. His sister is wounded and his mother’s alone and Pete’s here, with a stranger. With a siren.

With a story lacking only an ending.

Pete grabs the collar of his shirt, clinging tightly and pretending the cloth is cool. Patrick’s so adamant about going back to the ocean, so set on letting these dangers crawl closer to him. Why? Why can’t he understand that Pete’s only doing this to protect him? Why can’t he—

No. That’s not fair. Pete can’t waste time wondering about Patrick’s thoughts— he’d never be granted the answer. Instead…

Why does he wish to protect him? What does he have to gain? What does he have to lose by releasing the siren to the sea?

The mere thought sends his heartbeat into a panic.

It isn’t fair that such a mythical being has taken so much control in his life. A few months ago, Pete would have raced to his mother’s side. Does it make him horrible that he’s weighed the consequences of the choices and found Patrick’s to be the heaviest?

His jaw tightens. His breaths deepen.

There’s no one to blame but himself; there’s nothing to blame but the monsters. The longer he sits in the darkness, the more certain he becomes that he and the creatures are cut from the same cloth. Selfish and petty, good with words but horrible in action. A danger to themselves, to others, to the world. Warning labels in the form of uncontrolled emotions.

 _Keep away_ , the sign says.  _Don’t get caught up in this mess of a human wreck. Don’t get trapped in this storm._

Storm. A corner of Pete’s lips curls upwards like charring paper. Lashing winds and pelting rains? Screaming thunder and the threat of lightning?

With so many emotions wracking through him— so many with no explanation, no answer— Pete feels a bit like a storm. And Patrick may be a siren but even he can’t handle such a thing.

Captured. That’s what Patrick said he was. So who is Pete to feel protective?

He shakes his head. These thoughts are too many and he’s tired of them— he’s tired, in general. Patrick would understand if Pete took the night to sleep, to feel human for a bit. His mind’s always had the midnight watch but, sometimes, he can close his eyes and dream at the same time as everyone else.

Patrick would understand if he was alone for one night. Wouldn’t he?

Patrick would understand.

Patrick—

A sudden splash. A terrified shriek.

Pete’s eyes snap open and he’s on his feet before Patrick’s done screaming, running for the bathroom with his heart in his throat. Had the monsters taken over Patrick’s mind? Had they caused him harm? Was it a nightmare? An attack? A threat? Pete dares not imagine for long.

The door slams open with a thunderous sound, Pete’s eyes scanning the room for anything out of place.

“What happened? Are you okay? What’s going on, Patrick, what—” He stops, ice-cold panic draining from his veins as he finally looks to the bath.

Patrick’s still making terrified noises, flapping his tail furiously and scrambling back from the offenders.

Scrambling back from the  _bubbles_.

Pete watches, wide-eyed, for a moment as Patrick tries to escape the suds surrounding him, the bottle of soap bobbing harmlessly in the water.

His tail slams down into the water and his hands claw at the edge of the bath. Pete’s snapped out of his trance, rushing to Patrick’s side even as confusion continues to trickle through his mind.

“Calm down, they’re just bubbles. They’re not gonna hurt you, just—” Pete reaches for Patrick’s arm, swearing under his breath when the siren yanks away, his frantic motions only causing more bubbles to appear which, in turn, only seems to heighten his fear. “Come  _on_ , it’s fine, I swear, let me help you!”

Patrick doesn’t listen, shaking his head and rubbing the bubbles off his skin and scales, thrashing as if he’s caught in a net. He slips free from Pete’s hands each time there’s contact, the soap aiding in his escape but also causing him to slip against the smooth surface of the bath.

“Patrick, calm down!” Pete shouts, propping a knee up on the bath to more easily reach the siren. Patrick’s eyes shut and his tail flaps again, soaking Pete. Pete loses his balance for just a moment, catching himself with hands on Patrick’s shoulders. Water soaks up to his elbows and his knee loses its place on the edge of the bath, dipping into the bubble-filled water and skimming across Patrick’s tail. He twists along with Patrick’s writhing, murmuring pleas for the other to calm down. “Patrick, chill. Patrick, Patrick,  _Patrick, I swear—”_

Patrick yanks back one last time, pulling Pete down with a hand fisted in his shirt. Pete’s halfway in the bath, stuck in an awkward position with one leg hovering over the water and another barely keeping him balanced on the bathroom floor. He’s leaning over Patrick, hands on the siren’s shoulders and their faces a breath apart.

“Patrick, stop,” he says, careful not to move or collapse into the bath. Somehow, magically, Patrick stills. He opens his eyes and Pete’s greeted by terrified blue-gold.

Deep breaths and fluttering gills, Patrick pressed onto his back and Pete doing his best to keep balanced. Pete doesn’t know how much time passes but he’s more than aware of the water finally stilling around them.

“Patrick,” he says, at last, through heaving breaths. “What the hell happened?”

Patrick blinks, half-guilty and half-innocent. It’s impossible for Pete to keep his accusatory tone as Patrick looks to the side.

“I was reaching for the duck,” Patrick admits, glancing at where the rubber toy still rests on the edge. “I was so focused on being careful that I failed to see my tail knocking into the bottles. One of them fell in and spilled whatever was in it and I tried to pick it up but it started making these…  _things_. Like air bubbles but they smelled weird and stuck to my skin and I had no idea if they were dangerous or not.”

Patrick’s embarrassment would be obvious from any angle but, this close, Pete can see the confusion and regret curling together in the siren’s eyes— sorry and full of childish distress.

Pete takes a long breath, focusing back on the issue at hand and not on the way his stomach’s twisting.

“Bubbles. They… They’re a different kind of bubbles but they were bubbles,” he says, pulling back a fraction but still keeping one hand on Patrick. “Like, they were made of soap and they’re meant to clean you. Kinda. Whatever, they just… They aren’t dangerous. So, you’re fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Oh,” Patrick says after a bit, red spots coloring his face. “I… Oh.”

“Yeah.” Pete frowns, his attention caught by a small bubble steadily making its way down Patrick’s cheek. “Hang on, you have one on your face.”

“I do?” Patrick asks. “Where?”

“Here,” Pete says, reaching to rub it away.

Reaching at the same time Patrick does.

He brushes against the bubble first, popping it without a sound and landing against the soft skin beneath. Patrick’s there a second later, his fingertips against Pete’s with the gentlest touch.

Pete doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, and Patrick’s stilled gills reflect the same. Wide blue-gold eyes and parted pink lips, steady fingers and the light press of his nails. Everything is silent. Everything is so impossibly still.

Damp. Warm.  _Patrick_.

Pete pulls his hand away like he’s been burned. Gasps fill his lungs, tearing through his throat as if he’d been pressed beneath relentless waves.

His mind blurs with unfair thoughts, crawling with what-ifs and why-nots. Crashing waves take over the sound in his ears, rushing blood and heavy breaths. Patrick stares back up at him, eyes wide like he’s comprehending nothing— or as if he’s comprehending too much. It’s a gaze filled with deep blues and an expression like the one Pete saw when Patrick first rose from the water. A look speckled with stardust and glowing with trepidation, eyes stuck on Pete’s in a way that makes it forbidden for Pete to turn his head. A look that dares Pete to feel anything other than the heat rising to his cheeks, the anxious excitement in his blood. A look dripping with a thousand words while revealing none. A look only a siren like Patrick could give.

Beneath his touch, Patrick squirms and it is then that Pete realizes he is still holding him down.

Pete has no idea what thoughts are now racing inside Patrick’s mind, and he doesn’t care half as much as he should; he only hopes that they align with his own.

It’d be easy, almost too easy, to give into the raw emotions burning through his mind. Patrick’s eyes, seeming to smolder and scorch Pete’s soul, tear through him with a sensation far too much like magic for it to be natural. Pete can feel the gaze on his skin, harsher than the monsters’ had been but so much more pleasant. Sunset rests in Patrick’s hair when he shifts a fraction of an inch, light dancing upon the gold as it fades into the dampened reds. The sight before him burns across his veins and thoughts, turning him to fantasies better left unsaid.

So easy.

A hand on Patrick’s shoulder, pressing him into the water. Another raised above his cheek, pulled back but ready to return to the smooth skin at any second.

It’d be far too easy.

Pete’s eyes follow a line of bubbles traversing the terrain of Patrick’s jaw as the siren lifts his head, slipping from his brow and down the side of his face, finally making their way towards his lips. Careful. Cautious. Captivating.

_Captured_

No.

Pete pulls back the way he had before, like a fire had been lit beneath his touch. Without hesitation but with more than enough remorse.

“Pete?” Patrick sits up, eyebrows furrowing and a frown forming on his face. “I— Pete? I thought—”

“I’m soaked,” Pete breathes, an excuse not even he can twist to sound valid. “I need to change. You know how to switch out the water so… Get rid of the bubbles, I guess, if they’re still bothering you.”

Patrick sits up, frown deepening. “But, Pete—”

Pete steps back, shaking his head— shaking all over and pretending not to know why.

“I need to change.” He hurries to the door, unpleasantly pleasant emotions pressing into his guts and veins, shooting vivid images and scenarios into his mind. Images Pete’s locked away; scenarios he’s only dreamt of. “I need to go.”

“Pete—”

“I need to write, Patrick, I don’t have time for this, I—”

“Pete!” Patrick shouts.

But Pete’s already pulling the door shut behind him.

~

No words. No breaths. No voices. Only the sound of Pete’s pencil scratching across paper.

No thoughts. No fears. No wants.

Pete’s words are fiction as he scrawls them out; fiction, and nothing more, he swears. A distraction to keep him from returning to Patrick. A cry clawing at his mind to escape, worse than monsters could ever be.

He writes, lead staining the side of his hand and paper threatening to tear beneath the maddened touch. An insatiable need to empty his mind of these words drags his hand across the page, sentences appearing before he’s truly thought them out.

He’s not doing this for any reason other than his book, he promises. These words, these lines, these desperate scribbles are nothing more than a writer fulfilling his duty. To write.

Right?

 _Someone out there must, too, crave the taste of salt on their lips,_ he writes.  _Be it of the ocean or their own tears._

_Or maybe it’s merely the bitterness of promises kissed across too soft skin— both things meant to be torn apart and broken before this year is through._

He barely blinks as he continues to write, never stopping to read what he’s written because reading it makes it real, reading it means he’ll have to think about it.

Reading it means he’ll have to admit it.

_At that moment, that too close/too far moment, I saw lightning burst within the room like fireworks— now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t oaths of what could have been, what should have been. If monsters didn’t exist, if sirens weren’t real, if myths remained only on these pages, what could have been in that moment? What should have been done? Even now, these questions, these what-ifs, these… these… these imaginings agitate my mind._

Another thought stirs up. Another scene breaks through the barrier he’s created and Pete bites his tongue to keep from cursing the images he sees.

_I may have captured him, yes, but he caught me first and he did so in the cruelest ways. A siren only knows how to tempt and, try as he might to deny it, he knows, he knows, he has to know. No one carries the stars in their smile without feeling their heat. And he must feel the weight of gold within his eyes, the enticement buried in his very existence._

Overwhelmed with words, inundated by their presence, Pete bleeds them onto the page. There’s not much to writing, correct? Sit down at a typewriter and bleed?

More words. More thoughts. More scenes spill across the paper.

Pete’s a writer, writing what he must, no matter what pretty veins die in the process. It’s easier to sacrifice those over his sanity.

_And what of sacrifice? How should I write about something that has yet to exist?_

A page tears as he flips the notebook over, as crazed as he’s ever been. Isn’t this how writers are meant to be? Romanticized as they write in the light of a fading moon, raving until their pains become poetry? Their madness and misery a music for those wishing to dance along to someone else’s disease?

_A necklace is not a sacrifice. A departure is not an offering. Admirable, perhaps, but nothing like the loss of a life. Nothing like the lack of freedom._

_Nothing like losing someone you care for (or want or need) to monsters of the deep. Nothing like willingly leading someone you care about (or want or NEED) to a certain promise of torture._

_This is not the promise I wished to give._

_And the promise sewn into my mind is not one I should ever imagine._

The stars outside spin, dazzling Pete in ways only one other has.

He shakes his head. No. No. He must keep writing, must drain his mind of these thoughts before he can question why he’s writing them. Why he’s thinking them.

Why is he thinking them?

No.

_I couldn’t stay away. The siren is an obsession and he always has been. Will he always be? A catch-and-release I’m not meant to be used to. He’s nothing like the come-and-go of every other person in my life._

_I’ll be the one cutting the line. I’ll be the one beginning the goodbye._

_Will I be the one left abandoned at the end? No matter the pattern, no matter the ways, will the result always be the same?_

Pete writes like he can lock summer onto the page, keep time still with his hand on the clock— counting sentences instead of seconds, quoting memories instead of minutes.

_These monsters wipe their hands on my dreams, staining nightmares into my brain. Blame them for my incoherence, my ramblings, my confession_

No-one will care about the torn pages and smudged letters when he transitions this onto ink and machine, typed up and printed out like it means nothing. Like he meant to create a masterpiece rather than stumble upon it hiding in the ocean one night.

Water shifts in the bathroom, hushed and teasing.

_How loud would I have to scream to drown them out? This siren’s unyielding presence, the monsters’ unforgiving cries._

_The only things I’ve learned to drown are my dreams, weighed down by a sun lost to crashing waves. Weighed down by the appearance of a choice, force rotting behind the mask of free will_

Force and free will are the extremes, Pete thinks, pressing down on the page until the pencil tip threatens to snap. Give him an excuse to stop, remind him that this is not the story he’s meant to tell.

Force and free will.

He needs to tell this tale; he wants to keep it secret, stitched onto his chest like another tattoo, the edges of words taking the place of thorns as they dig into his skin. A perfect kind of pain.

_I don’t want this agony. I don’t want these feelings. I don’t want these thoughts or this siren in my home._

_Is this force speaking? Is this free will?_

_Or has it been me, all along?_

Pete’s pencil slides across the page, never surfacing to breathe as more words— more questions, more answers, more promises and fears— appear, filling the room like a thundercloud, storming without care of how terrified Pete grows with each strike of lightning.

_It’d be easier to imagine him as wicked, as an abomination. But not even fiction would excuse such a lie. How dare I suggest his strange beauty as anything other than captivating? How dare I pretend I haven’t dreamed of it since the moment we met?_

_You’ve read the pages. You know the thoughts._

_Why, then, has it taken so long for me to come across them on my own?_

He’s reaching dangerous territory. He’s crossing into words he’s pushed away for weeks.

He doesn’t care much anymore.

_Someone else must also long to know how soft red-gold hair can be. Someone else must desire to keep the feeling of him— damp and warm and trembling and perfect— beneath their hands._

_This is what it means to become a predator. But, that time, he wasn’t afraid._

Darkened lead on cream-shaded pages, like tattooed skin pressing a siren onto his back.

Pete’s a writer. He’ll always pretend there’s meaning in meaningless things. Isn’t that what he told Patrick, more or less?

_I told him I would take him back to the ocean. Was he afraid then?_

_I’ve seen his widened eyes, his pale face. I’ve heard his cries and screams. Afraid of the past and reacting to pain._

_What is he afraid of now? Why do I want to know?_

_And what do I want, anyway?_

Time slows, capturing the question in a net and holding it in the air just long enough for Pete to breathe.

_I want him to be afraid to leave. Not because I want him to stay but because if he leaves— when he leaves— I know how horrid these monsters are. They’re in my head and in my dreams, telling me what they plan for him._

_I want him to want to stay. Not because I enjoy his presence but because I can keep him safe. I can keep him trapped and contained but I can also keep him alive and well._

_I want him to be happy. Not because his smile is a sun I’ve lost but because he’s told me his pain and no-one deserves to live through such horrors without a light appearing at the end of the storm._

_I want him to be human. And, god, that sounds selfish but it’s not because it would keep him at my side and in my world but because it would keep him away from_   _them, away from the terrors of rebellious monsters and their sunset weapons._

_I want him to be everything that he is not— safe and at peace and mine— but I still want everything that he is. His beauty, his voice, his magic and myth and existence._

_What do I want?_

_I want him_


	14. Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the_chaotic_panda for beta'ing <3
> 
> (And thank you to sufferingtime for your first reader reactions lol)

 

_romance_

_noun_

_a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love_

The sun begins its slow descent down and a dusting of stars appear outside the window. Pete heaves tired breaths over his writing desk, muscles tense from bending over smudged pieces of paper for the better part of the day. Somehow, the day had become a blur of writing confessions and hiding them in folders he’ll bring back to his editor, reading less emotional prose and editing in details readers will talk about tattooing onto their bodies but never follow through with. All of it bleeds together like a pen with too much ink, spreading across his thoughts and leaving no room for new ideas.

Through the dark ocean of muddled thoughts, the monsters in his mind crawl free. They claw into the shape of his exhaustion, listening in on his shuddered pants and twitching fingers tapping uselessly against the desk. Joy and cruel contentment fill their beings, dripping the poison down Pete’s spine as the moon takes its place in the sky.

 _Soon_  is all they say.  _Soon_.

Pete’s hands tremble and lock in place, a piece of paper held tightly in his grasp.

“Never,” he whispers back. “ _Never_.”

There’s a shift in his thoughts— a breath, a sigh, a muffled laugh— and it sends panic across his skin like a winter wind. Harsh and cold but never unusual, never unexpected.

 _Soon_ , they say again.  _Soon_.

They twist patient hatred into their words, coat their throats with a knowing smile and secrets. The fear of not understanding, the knowledge that he has every right to be afraid, forms like an itch in Pete’s mind. It bothers him relentlessly, tugging and tearing and teasing and telling him he doesn’t realize what's to come.

He doesn’t understand what these monsters need. And he’s unsure of whether or not he should want to. He’s unsure of whether or not he’s afraid of learning the answer or being kept in the dark. Yes, the dark is horrible and horrifying but it was in the dark that he found Patrick. It’s in the dark that the stars shine the brightest.

“Never,” Pete says again, stronger and more certain than he’d been before. “Never.”

Strong. Certain. Confident.

The phone rings and all these feelings drain away.

Laughter snakes its way into Pete’s mind, alongside the incessant ringtone he’d chosen months ago— something chiming and without a tune. Cackles and the cacophony of  _soon_ take over his mind.

Still, he answers. Desperate for any distraction, he answers.

“Hello?”

“Pete.”

Not a question or a greeting. Pete smiles even as his shoulders slump.

“Oh, mom. I meant to call you but—”

“But you never did. I know how it is with you, you’re probably tied up in all your daydreams, right?” She’s as stern as ever and it eases a comfort into Pete’s chest. Warm and light, the distraction he needed.

“Yeah, something like that,” he says. “Look, I’ll be back soon, I just need to—”

“Oh, no need to worry about that.” She cuts him off, one of the only people who can get away with doing so. “I’m going to be heading down there soon. Thought if I couldn’t get my son to come to me, might as well go to him, right?”

Ice and terror and laughter. So much laughter.

“What?” Pete asks. “Why would you— You don’t need to— Things are—”

“I’ll be down there in a few days,” she carries on, either ignoring or not hearing him. “The earliest flight I could get was for the end of the week but I’m sure it will all work out. I’ll be there soon, anyhow.”

“But, mom!” Pete cuts in, breathing fast. Water splashes in the bathroom and he knows Patrick’s waking up, knows there are only a few minutes left to decide whether he goes home before his mom returns. He doesn’t know if the waters are safe yet, hasn’t concocted a plan to protect the siren once he’s gone. Oh, yes, Patrick has siren powers and years of practice but that was before they knew where he was. That was before Pete knew to worry. “I’m… I’m not done with my book yet. It’d just be distracting.” He winces at his own choice of words.

“Distracting,” his mom says after a small pause, her tone curt and a bit offended. “You’ve written with me around before. Is there… Peter, is there something wrong down there?”

Mother’s instinct kicks in at the wrong moment and Pete’s stomach twists in an ugly way.

“No,” he says, too quick to be believable. “I just need to write.”

“Right.” Another pause. Enough time for Pete to wonder whether or not it’d truly be a horrible thing for her to know about Patrick. She could help protect him, couldn’t she? A wild idea forms in Pete’s mind. His mom must know how to keep Patrick alive; Pete’s still around, after all.

_Soon_

Terror replaces ice in Pete’s veins, hot and scalding and pressing against his heart like an ember.

_Soon_

The monsters twist and howl and cackle the word, waiting for Pete to understand.

_Soon_

_Soon_

_Soon_

_Soon_

“Soon.” The word’s a breath, a realization, a threat, a fear, a key to a floodgate that bursts through the walls he’d so flimsily placed between himself and these creatures.

_How long can you protect him? And what will you sacrifice to make it so?_

Pete’s world flips and spins, leaving him dizzy and nauseated as his mom’s voice continues down the line of the phone— words he hears but can’t comprehend, lost in the sea of terrible monsters.

_Did you think the one attack was all you would face? Did you think we wouldn’t wait until a chance like this?_

The voices are trapped in his mind so there’s no place for them to go but against his skull and into his thoughts, firing through his veins and into his chest, burning and scalding and howling as they go.

_You can keep us from attacking the siren, but are you strong enough to prevent an attack on two fronts? You can block us while we’re aiming for him, but can you stop the half that will be trying to kill her?_

Is it usual for Pete to lose his breath in such a fearful fashion? To see nothing but a blurred haze before his eyes, swimming in dastardly shapes? Shadows are suddenly monsters of the deep, biting at his throat and skin, tearing nails into every hope he’s ever had.

This can’t be real. This can’t be right. They can’t divide like this, can they? They can’t create two targets in the same mind, two assassination attempts from the same hands… Can they?

_Can we? Do you want to wait to find out?_

Pete’s mom continues to talk, her tone more concerned now that Pete’s gone so long without speaking.

In the bathroom, Patrick splashes. Awake and probably playing with that stupid duck. Probably waiting for Pete to join him.

_Who will you protect? What sacrifices are you willing to give?_

“I… I can’t…” The words escape on an unsteady voice, speaking because keeping silent will only help him to lose his mind. “I won’t…”

“Pete? Honey, are you okay?” Worried and afraid, Pete knows these emotions will simply bring his mom here earlier than she’s already planning. Forget flight times and tickets, he knows she’ll find her way here if she’s scared enough for her son.

“I’m fine,” he chokes out, even as monsters continue to taunt him with the ultimatum. His mom or his siren? His family or his friend? Someone who loves him or someone he—

_She will come and we will be waiting._

Pete takes deep breaths— breaths that do nothing to ease his mind and nerves.

No matter what answer he gives, it can’t be done with a clear conscience. It feels like it can’t be done at all.

A response takes shape on his tongue. Something he knows he should say but not something he necessarily wants to say.

“What if I came back before you came here?” He asks, buying time and covering his fear. His mom still sounds worried when she answers but she answers all the same. “You need to be there for Hillary so… What if I came back? I should have done so a long time ago anyway.” The words are bitter in his mouth and sharp against his lips. Though it’s merely a suggestion, a way to keep his mom safe from here, it already feels like a betrayal.

“I suppose that would be fair,” she says, “but I can’t be waiting for weeks, Peter. Hil’s almost out of the hospital and she’ll need help around the house.”

Help around the house. Weeks of aiding his sister and his mom before heading off to his editor’s desk— a place where months of work will be waiting for him. He can be gone for twice the time he was here; he can be gone forever.

He thought he was prepared to leave this place in his memories— or wherever the stars will take these thoughts once he’s forgotten them.

He thought he was ready. But he also thought he’d have more time to be sure he was.

“Just be here soon,” his mom says.

“Right.” Pete laughs, dark and choked off. “Soon.”

_Soon_

~

Pete’s a writer known for spilling emotions like oil into the ocean; his words are evidence of the toxicity of such cruel things existing in the world, trapping and choking anyone who draws near.

His sentences, his letters, his thoughts alone are swirling galaxies amidst beautiful blues and even he can’t kid himself into believing they aren’t created to capture others. The dark among the light, the truth within the lies his readers feel they’ve been fed.

Usually, he hates knowing the power his pen possesses— despises the way it can twist minds and place his own beliefs on someone else’s tongue. It’s a curse, most days, thinking in words that must be unraveled and dissected. It’s a burden, most nights. This unending ramble of drawn-out metaphors and hidden meanings… Most nights, he wishes his special brand of sadness away.

Tonight, though, it’s not a hook at the end of a line sinking into the watery bane of his thoughts. Tonight, it’s not a black hole in a never-ending sky. It’s not a wrong parading as a right.

It’s him and it’s his. It’s the humanity set apart from monstrous cackles as he joins Patrick in the bathroom. It’s the promise that he still has a strand wrapped around his brain, no matter how thin and frayed. It’s proof that he’s still in control of his thoughts because, so long as they wind through neurons and synapses, these oil spill words are his own.

It’s the last piece of insanity that he can call his own.

When the bathroom door shuts behind him— softly, with a barely audible  _click_ — Patrick looks up from the water with blinking eyes. Pete swallows, savoring the obliviousness locked within the seaside shade— blues breaking against the golden sands in the center, crashing and cracking and calling Pete closer, closer, closer still.

No words. No voices. Patrick doesn’t know the monsters’ plan; he doesn’t know this is one of the last times he’ll be here.

How would he feel if he knew?

Pete shakes these thoughts from his crowded mind and falls to his knees beside the bath. Patrick twists to the side, revealing the bandages that they both know don’t need to be there anymore.

The soft peel of bandage from damp skin breaks the subtle hush, shades of pink greeting Pete instead of the violent reds he’d seen on the wound before. Pete draws in a long breath to settle his nerves, fingertips trailing electric paths across Patrick’s skin as he wipes down the healing cut. Only the gentle rustling of the first aid kit and quiet shifts of water fill the air.

No words. No voices. Still, Pete’s eyes catch on the soft blush of color rising to Patrick’s cheeks when he lets his fingers linger on the siren’s skin, brushing across his side and by his scales. Patrick’s gaze darts away from Pete, either demure or afraid, but Pete can’t bring himself to pull his hands away just yet.

As his touch drifts across impossibly soft expanses of skin, the air charges with the storm Pete felt before. Thunderbolts and cold clouds rush through his veins, lightning sparking whenever he feels Patrick shuddering beneath his hands. Every inhale is filled with the promise of something destructive or perfect; every exhale is a surrender to whichever way this decides to go. Destroy him or create something incredible, he can’t care anymore. He’s leaving soon, anyway. What does he have to lose?

No words and no voices but Pete can still write an entire chapter— a beginning or an ending, a piece meant to give or take away— on how this moment feels. He could pull sentences into existence from the small stream of thoughts running through his mind, parallel to the snapping fangs of cruel creatures and away from the sensibility he thought he had. He could create an entirely new novel based on these feelings— unjustifiable, unknown, unseen— alone.

Words, though, he would never write and words he would never say. Never completely believe what you share with the world, he’s learned, and never share with the world what you truly believe. Over the years, he’s taught himself to spare the details of his mind and focus only on describing the exact taste of pills and scars. Share too much and he’s exposed; share too much and suddenly the world thinks they own him.

And no one can have him.

No one but…

Pete’s hands flatten on Patrick’s skin, stopping as he takes a shuddering breath. His fingertips rest centimeters away from the wound, the sunrise shade of healing pinks and soothing whites. Patrick’s own hand meets Pete’s, tips of nails pressing into Pete’s fingers with a gentle push, his palm over the injury. Or, rather, the place where the injury was. Now, it’s merely a scar in the works, hardly worth calling a wound.

Pete swallows, adding a subtle pressure to his hands— feeling as much of Patrick as he can, basking in the warmth while it lasts.

The silence cracks with the smallest tap, an exhale against a sheet of ice.

“I don’t want you to go back,” Pete breathes, staring only at his own hands. Patrick shifts beneath him. Uncomfortable? Or is he agreeing?

“I will only be in your backyard,” Patrick says. Pete’s eyes shut. Patrick doesn’t understand or, perhaps, he does. Isn’t he the one who said he was captured? He carries on, unknowing of how his words tear at Pete’s mind like thorns. “You can visit me until you feel you need to leave.”

More than a thorn this time, Patrick’s simple claim claws at Pete with the viciousness of the mermonsters’ claws.

Captured, that’s what Patrick said he was. So what does Pete have to lose by confessing his own feelings of captivation?

“I’m leaving in a few days,” he says, opening his eyes but seeing nothing other than the reflection of man-made lights in the water around Patrick. “I… I have to go soon. I won’t have time to visit you. I’ll… Patrick, this could be our last night together.”

Pete chooses his words carefully, breathing them into existence with the caution of the stars blinking themselves to life— imperceptible beginnings shaping into things that could never be called back into nothingness. It’s the discretion that’s kept Pete balanced on the line of sanity and insanity over the years, dipping into either side when the public called for such a character.

Tonight, though, Pete has no one to expect anything from him. He’s stripped of his prose and poems, torn from his words and letters. As Patrick pulls away and looks at him with widened eyes, Pete feels raw and exposed, bleeding a thousand things he swore never to say.

“Why?” Patrick asks, as light as Pete’s touch on him had been. “Why so soon? Why without warning?”

Fear coats Patrick’s voice but it sounds all wrong— too close to betrayal than anything else.

“They… They…” Pete fights to keep his throat from closing up, battles against the hurt and rage tearing through his mind. “Patrick, they threatened my mom. She called and said that she was coming here and they said… The monsters said they’ll make me hurt her. Or you. I can keep them from controlling me now but if they divide and plan two different attacks, I can’t… Patrick, I can’t take that risk.”

Silence. No words or voices. Just the shifting of water and Pete’s shaky breaths.

Finally, Patrick speaks in a voice as terrible as Pete feels. “Then you should go. Now, tonight, as soon as you can. They will not hesitate to rush their plans, Pete, to turn you on the people in this town or on— You need to leave.”

“No.” The word breaks from Pete’s throat as he reaches for Patrick’s hand, holding it in a desperate grip. “Not… Not now, Patrick. I… I know you want to go back in the water and I know you feel trapped but I… I can’t, I—”

“Trapped?” Patrick interrupts with a distant rumble of thunder across Pete’s overcast skies. “Did I… Did I ever say I felt trapped?”

Pete’s eyebrows furrow together and he frowns at the question. Hadn’t Patrick said as much? Isn’t this why he’s been begging to go back to the beach? “You said I’m the only one who's captured you.”

Pools of sunshine riptides— blues and golds and a never-blinking gaze— meet Pete’s eyes, crinkled in bemusement. “And why does captured need to mean trapped?”

“I— What?”

“When you say trapped, I imagine a loss of freedom. Cages and animals. But when I said captured…” Patrick pauses, sighing lightly. “Even the moon and stars are not immune to such a thing. Are not the planets caught by the sun, captured by its greatness? The stars have always captured us— captivated and entranced us. But we are not trapped by them, are we? Sure, we had no choice in the matter but are we not better off for it? Trapped by a star… what a silly thing to believe.”

Pete’s head spins in tune with Patrick’s words, struggling to keep up and fighting to comprehend. “Patrick?”

“I know,” Patrick says, looking back over with a smile— weak and forced and watery. “I should not be saying such things but you are leaving soon and the sand will make you forget so… While you are here, can I not say what has been on my mind? Can I… Can I say one thing and let you forget it in the few seconds that follow? Can you pretend you never heard the words until they are truly gone from your mind?”

Pete’s mouth dries at this backward scene, this moment that played out in reverse in his mind.

Slowly, he nods. “Of course.”

Patrick’s eyes shut for a second, his lips parting in what must be a prayer, before they open once more and meet Pete’s with the shade of lightning soaking into the blue.

“I do not wish for you to ever leave.”

 _And I don’t want to leave you alone_. The words rest on Pete’s tongue with an instant ease, a response he can say without fear of them being rejected. The words he planned on speaking when he first entered the room, when he fell to his knees and knew Patrick’s wound would be healed. They’re the words he wrote in his book again and again, until the pen was out of ink, a thousand different ways.  _I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to write this ending._

But Patrick’s words are those Pete said he’d pretend to forget and, by the time he realizes he agreed to such a thing, Patrick’s already wiping at his eyes and pinning an even brighter smile onto his face— faker than before but ready to play its part.

“Can we talk about your book instead? Tell me if you finished it yet?” He asks. And Pete cannot deny his smile— no matter how false it seems.

“Yeah, I… I couldn’t finish it. I ran out of time and, I mean, it’s just one chapter left,” he says. Patrick sits up, leaning forward as if enraptured by Pete’s words. Pete should pull back, should pull away from the temptation Patrick’s offering up, but he only finds himself moving closer. A tide pulled by a moon or a planet surrounding a star— either way, it feels out of his control. “I don’t… I haven’t found an ending yet.”

Patrick’s hand grasps Pete’s, light and loose but warm and sure. “You never did tell me the exact plot of your book, Pete. I always see you writing but I never know what your words say. Tell me? And I can try to help you find that ending.”

Pete’s a writer and he’s always going to try to find meaning in meaningless things— dreams and sentences from sirens. He shakes his head at Patrick’s words and focuses only on the surface.

“A siren prince,” he says, a grin twitching into his lips at Patrick’s astonished glance up. “A siren prince and his escape from danger.”

Patrick licks his lips and, for once, Pete doesn’t force himself to look away. “And is he your only character?”

“Of course not,” Pete says, running his thumb over Patrick’s knuckles. “I put a human into the story, too. He’s useless, really, out of his depth and trying to figure things out. Like how sirens are real and how he feels and if he should ever admit to those feelings. I mean, my siren hasn’t said a thing about feeling the same way but maybe he’s waiting for the human or maybe he doesn’t want to say it or—”

“Or maybe he knows better than to say those words,” Patrick says, smiling softly— knowingly and sadly. He plays along, speaking in a code they’ve created in a matter of seconds. A language meant for two beings raised in different worlds— a manner of speaking, just for them. “Maybe he stopped himself each time he was tempted because there were monsters listening in and they already hurt everyone he has cared about. Maybe he knew what the monsters would do with someone he said that to. Maybe, in order to keep the human safe, he had to stop before that phrase could be heard— before it was voiced and impossible to take back.”

Pete’s unblinking, his gaze as steady as Patrick's.

“Maybe,” Pete says, the word breaking halfway through. “So should I put that for my final chapter? Is that how you think the book should go?”

It’s the last thing Pete wants, the ambiguity and vagueness. He knows what questions readers will ask, knows the theories and conspiracies that will form in the name of two fictional beings. He’s composed bittersweet stories before but this one feels like it shouldn’t have a question mark on the closing page. Pete’s a writer and he knows when a story is meant to end in a definite way— he just needs to know that this one won’t be answered with tragedy.

Patrick bites his lip, looking down to their entwined hands. They’ve grown closer as they spoke, fingers interlocking with each other and Pete leaning dangerously toward the water. Still, no one moves as Patrick speaks.

“Can’t you give them a happy ending?” He asks, looking up with eyes that threaten to overflow. If Pete is oil in the ocean than Patrick is the ocean itself, crashing onto land with a passion that tears into life with no intent to leave. Even now, his eyes alone storm through Pete’s broken soul, filling the cracks with star-kissed water and soothing the scars with galaxies of gold and blue.

He wants to look away before he breaks under the pressure of such magnificent waves but he forces himself to keep his eyes on Patrick’s. If this is something he is meant to forget, he wants to fill his present with every second possible.

“I’m no good with happy endings, Patrick,” he says.

The eyes of a siren— the eyes of a creature that shouldn’t exist, the eyes of a creature that  _does_ — stare back. Blue eyes, glinting with stardust and promise, meet Pete’s, closer than they were before. Patrick’s hand fists in Pete’s shirt, tugging him down. Full lips— pink and soft— rest a heartbeat away.

“Then let me show you how it should go.”

And then there’s no distance at all.

Patrick’s lips meet Pete’s and the world becomes a supernova behind Pete’s eyes— brilliantly explosive, outshining galaxies and beaming more radiantly than the sun ever could— and he returns the action without a moment of hesitation. Fumbling hands find Patrick’s shoulders as he’s pulled into the water, knees on either side of the siren’s tail, water splashing around them as Patrick pulls him closer— closer, closer, closer still— into the bath. He’s pulling Pete to him and pressing himself to Pete, their chests separated only by a soaking shirt. Nails dig into Pete’s skin as Patrick scrambles across his arm and holds down on his back, keeping Pete steady and keeping him near.

They collapse into each other like worlds colliding to form a new one— catastrophically against any natural order but with an intent only they know, a place meant for them alone. They fit together like stars aligning, creating constellations no one will know the meaning of even as they marvel at it anyway. And Patrick feels like the greatest star beneath his hands and lips, brighter than a sun and burning hotter than any celestial body. He holds Pete with a passion that can only be ethereal, scorching with a power that is nothing less than divine.

“Stay,” Patrick breathes into his mouth, so soft Pete’s certain he never meant to let the word escape. Hands tangle in his hair, Patrick’s touch going across his body as if memorizing every inch. “Stay.”

It’s the one word he repeats, again and again, and it’s the one request Pete cannot fulfill. Anything else, Pete would have done. He would cast the stars into the sea, had Patrick asked. He’d capture a star— a real star— and bring it to Patrick without hesitation. But, this? To stay? With the monsters circling his mind, Pete knows this is something he cannot do.

He presses his lips back to Patrick’s as a response, hiding the sorrow before it can slip free once more. The water’s forgotten as he melds himself closer, the tip of his tongue brushing the siren’s lips and insisting to be let in. Patrick’s lips part with a soft breath, their tongues meeting with the fire of an ending universe coursing through their veins.

Pete clings to Patrick with a longing strong enough to paint entire solar systems across his perfect skin. He holds on like Patrick’s his ship in a storm, his one safe point in a life set out to ruin all that makes him sane.

He holds on like he can force himself to remember any of this when the time comes.

A shroud of empty darkness falls over Pete’s shoulders and he shudders, pulling away with panting breaths.

Mere inches separate him from Patrick now but, Pete knows, those inches might as well be entire seas.

“Stay with me,” Patrick whispers, gripping onto Pete’s shirt still. Pete shakes his head and Patrick’s hold tightens, his voice burning Pete’s skin. “Stay  _for_ me.”

“I can’t.” Pete’s words are broken, his voice an abyss for all the emotions he’s fought so hard to keep hidden. “Patrick… I can’t. I’ll come back, though, I’ll—”

“You will have no memories of me,” Patrick says, tone and expression falling flat but still cracking along the edges. “You will leave and I knew you would but I could not help this. I could not help the way I felt and now you will be gone, just like everyone else and—”

“Patrick,” Pete says. He lays flat against Patrick, chest-to-chest, and cradles Patrick’s face in his hands like a caress. Their foreheads meet in a gentle touch, their breaths brushing against each other as Pete shuts his eyes. “I promise you, I will come back.”

Pete can feel Patrick swallowing rapidly, can feel his chest shuddering with unheard sobs.

“Listen,” Pete continues, fighting to keep both himself and Patrick calm. If Patrick breaks down now, there’s no promise Pete will be able to follow through with anything else after tonight. He can’t protect Patrick any longer than he already has but, this way, he can save his mom. A sacrifice he wishes he never had to face but one he’ll make all the same. He opens his eyes and pulls back, looking down at Patrick and fighting back his own fears of what will happen to him once he’s gone. “Don’t think for a second that I want to leave you here. If I could take you with me, I would. Nothing scares me more than what might happen when I leave.”

Patrick’s silent for a moment, body trembling, before he smiles bitterly up at Pete.

“I always thought it would be better to have another siren in the waters with me,” he says, stroking Pete’s cheek gently, “but now, for the first time, I wish I were a human.”

“We always wish for things we can’t have,” Pete says, grabbing Patrick’s hand and holding it to his chest as he sits up. He keeps his gaze on the siren beneath him, seeing something new each time he blinks; are Patrick’s eyes bluer than before or are those just the unshed tears? Pete looks away for the first time since being pulled into the bath, resisting the urge to wipe away the stinging behind his eyes. “This doesn’t feel like a happy ending, you know.”

“I know,” Patrick breathes. A moment passes, and then another. Finally, Patrick speaks with a broken whisper. “Pete, look here.”

Pete turns his head and he’s met with Patrick sitting up, shifting beneath him. Patrick reaches out, hands brushing Pete’s cheeks as if wiping away tears, before moving further back to cover his ears. He presses on them hard and Pete winces, trying to pull away, but Patrick keeps him still, eyebrows wrinkling together until Pete submits.

Slowly, when all is calm, Patrick’s lips begin to move.

Three words. Three simple words that Pete’s never written before in his books. Three words he didn’t know he needed Patrick to say. Three words he can’t hear but words that he can see as easily as if they were transcribed.

As Patrick repeats the phrase over, muffled by the hands on his ears, Pete loses the battle against his emotions and tears finally falls from his eyes. Patrick stops as Pete crumbles, eyes wide and hands beginning to pull back.

Pete panics, pressing his hands over Patrick’s to keep them in place. Patrick’s eyes widen further— and then Pete echoes the phrase back to him.

He doesn’t dare speak or whisper, merely moving his lips with breaths he knows are barely audible. It doesn’t matter, though, as Patrick smiles with a radiance that would put the sun to shame.

Too soon, their hands fall back into the water and all that is left is the memory of what has been left unheard.

No voices. No words. The silence could last all night but Pete wouldn’t care— not if it meant the night could last forever.

No one speaks until Pete’s eyelids grow heavy and he’s fighting off exhaustion. He doesn’t want to rest tonight but Patrick’s hands rubbing circles on his back ease him towards the promise of sleep.

“Take some sand with you when you leave,” Patrick whispers. “Find sand that was touched by the ocean and take it, please. It will not let you remember everything but it will keep you connected to the waters— to me.” He pauses as Pete’s eyes slip shut, his voice feeling less like a reality with each passing second. “We can meet when the stars are out, Pete. When you sleep, that connection will grow stronger and we can meet again in your dreams.”


	15. Tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the love to the_chaotic_panda for beta'ing Xx

 

_tragedy_

_noun_

_a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character_

They greet the dawn with languid murmurs and somnolent kisses, fingertips scattering stars across skin and scales as if this alone can make the night last forever. Patrick breathes Pete’s name with a shaking exhale and Pete returns with a sigh of his own.

“Patrick,” he says as anchors line themselves around his being. He could stay here forever, given the chance, he’s sure. “Patrick.”

Patrick keeps a hand caught in Pete’s hair, resting amongst the dripping and curling locks. He smiles at the changing shape, blinking as water gets caught on the tips. It’s not as extreme a change as it would have been years ago, not the tight spirals he’d fought so hard to hide, but it’s enough to have Patrick bouncing his palm off of it, content in the harmless shift.

“Humans can become so many things,” he says and Pete knows he’s not speaking merely of hair or curls. “Of all the human things I envy, this is nearly the greatest.”

Pete doesn’t bother to explain that not even a human, with their best technology and toys, can create a way to keep them together. He doesn’t ask if Patrick’s magic can find a solution for them, either.

“Nearly?” He asks instead, a master at picking apart the words that don’t matter. “And what do you envy the most?”

“I would think it obvious,” Patrick says, tracing constellations on Pete’s cheek with his free hand. “I have said before that humanity is lucky to have you.”

Yes, Patrick has said this before but, this time, it sends new crackles of lightning into Pete’s veins, warming him with the static promise of destruction on the horizon.

“Yeah, well,” he says, looking away. “I just wish I could give all that luck to you.”

_Soon_

Neither speaks after that.

As the minutes drift by, seconds lost in an all-consuming sea, Patrick’s exhaustion grows more evident. His tail twitches with an attempt to stay awake. His blinks grow slower and slower. His grip on Pete becomes loose.

“Pete,” he says, nothing more than a whisper. Pete accepts it with a gentle smile, tracing Patrick’s lips with the tip of his finger.

“Patrick,” he says. “You need to sleep.”

He pulls himself free from Patrick’s arms with more trouble than he should. Chains tug at his eyes and limbs in an attempt to keep him beneath the waves of false hope and temporary joy. Cooled water seeps into his skin as he pushes himself up, giving him an excuse to shudder when Patrick’s touch lingers before fading away completely.

It’s no surprise when his clothes weigh him down and he knows he should change. The thought, though, of leaving Patrick for a second— a minute of selfishness, an exchange of dwindling moments for a meaningless comfort— keeps him in place. Heavy-heartedness sinks him to the floor. The once-plush towel feels thin beneath his knees, all pretense of comfort gone. He turns, resting his head on his arms upon the edge of the tub. It takes a while to find a position that doesn’t yank his neck or back in an unnatural way but, then, what about this is natural?

“Pete,” Patrick says once more like that night he first learned it. And then he speaks like he was born with the letters on his tongue, the way Pete first opened his eyes with unwritten stories etched on his soul. “Pete.”

This wasn’t a story he was ever predestined to write but he still smiles as Patrick begins to slip towards sleep. His hand rests nears Pete’s and Pete doesn’t hesitate to curl his own around it. With the reminder that Patrick’s near— safe and protected, for now— it’s easier to follow him into a world of nightmares and dreams.

For a day, Pete dreams of a siren with blue-gold eyes. He dreams of water on his skin, replacing air with a darkness lit only by a glimmering green tail and the sparks of a brilliant grin.

He dreams of salt-soaked kisses promising forever but tasting of goodbye.

He dreams of covered ears and a phrase he’ll never able to truly say out loud.

He dreams of oceans and tears and storms and farewells.

He dreams of the two word stuck in his thoughts, the sobbing voice of a sunken angel screaming to be heard over the chaos of monsters and madness.

 _Stay_ , he dreams.

 _Soon,_ he dreams.

Like a sun and moon taking turns across the sky, he dreams of these words pressed against the utter blackness of his own mind.

~

Pete clings to  _stay_ but he wakes to  _soon_.

Too soon.

_Soon_

The sun must be fading from the sky because their volume is increasing. The moon must be settling into its throne because their voices are multiplying. The stars must be covered by clouds and haze because there’s a confidence that wasn’t there before.

Pete keeps himself still as if he can coax sleep back into his being. Patrick’s hand rests in his own-- neither of them has moved throughout the night. Frozen together in a time that should have been longer than it was, time stolen from a fate meant to keep them apart. Pete reaches frantically for one more minute, one more second, one more breath to spend with his siren. Let dust shroud him and allow a curse to befall this home. Let him sleep for a thousand years if it means Patrick is by his side.

But Patrick’s breathing shifts and his hand twitches in Pete’s grip. Water splashes against itself and Pete doesn’t need to look to know that blue-gold has been revealed.

_Soon_

The sun must be setting. The moon must be shimmering. The stars must be hidden.

“Now?” Patrick asks. Whether it’s to himself or to the stars or to Pete doesn’t matter as Pete lifts his head with a heavy breath. His eyes find Patrick’s and he nods.

“Now.”

It’s better to take Patrick back before he can grow attached to this relationship— or understanding or feeling or whatever the world wants him to call it. It’s better to throw his money at the first flight home, to turn around and race to an airport miles from this town. It’s better to pretend that rushed kisses and unheard confessions are closure.

With the same methodical movements he used each time he checked on Patrick’s wound— scarring, now, with sunset shades of gentle pink— Pete drains the water, helping Patrick to collect the toys that had fallen in with Pete before. It would warm his heart, the way Patrick’s wide eyes watch the rubber duck circle towards the drain, but every passing second only serves to chill his bones.

_Soon_

Pete once responded to that word with  _never_. Now, though, the defense sticks in his throat— a lie, nothing more than a hope.

“Now?” Patrick asks, blinking up at Pete once the water becomes too low for any toys to float in. His eyes pierce Pete with memories of the night they met, before the monsters and the lore. He’s sent back to a time before confessions and fear— a time when Patrick was a smiling enigma and Pete was just an author trying to write a book.

“Yeah,” Pete says, his voice breaking like waves on the word. “Now.”

Patrick’s arms around Pete’s neck and his tail across Pete’s arms. No words other than the one in Pete’s mind.

_Soon_

It’s easy to make it through the house, so much easier than it should be. The home seems barely lived in, not one thing out of place aside from scattered shoes or a window accidentally left open. There’s nothing to block his way to the back door, no twist of fate sent to expand their seconds into minutes.

They make it to the porch ten minutes before official sundown. If Patrick’s relieved to be back in the presence of the sky, he doesn’t show it. His face keeps buried in Pete’s neck and he presses closer towards Pete.

“Now,” he whispers. “Take me back to the water now before either of us change our mind.”

Pete starts. Change their minds? It’s not an option but it’s a tempting daydream.

“Of course,” he says. “Of course.”

Of course, he’ll take Patrick now while the stars come to life and he has a chance at survival. Of course, he needs to follow through so he can at least protect his mom.

Still, he allows one more hesitation, eyes shut against the cuts the monsters’ voices leave across his mind.

_Soon_

“Pete,” Patrick says, stronger than before. “Now.”

Now.

Pete nods and begins the descent down the stairs. The beach and ocean blur before his eyes and he tells himself it’s magic, it’s exhaustion, it’s anything other than the result of an impending loss.

Patrick’s silent in his arms as Pete crosses the sand, cursing each grain beneath his feet. How dare such an insignificant thing stand in the way of remembering this person in his arms? How dare his memories rely on their presence?

Sand becomes rock, and water laps gently against it, a sound Pete tries not to abhor. It’s not the water’s fault that monsters hide within it, with blades and fangs. It’s not the water’s fault that Pete feels like a traitor leading his loved one to a slaughter. It’s not the water’s fault that Patrick is beginning to feel more like a sacrifice than anything else.

It’s not the water’s fault if something goes wrong but it’d be so much easier if it was.

Pete finds the place— their place— on the rocks without meaning to, walking as if called to the spot where he first saw Patrick’s eyes. It’d be touching, the memories of playful laughter and jokes, but the Sunset Blade is buried somewhere in these rocks and Pete feels like jumping into the waves to see if the monsters will take him instead.

_Soon_

Now, Pete’s on his knees and Patrick’s tail is dipping beneath the surface of the ocean. Patrick shudders at the feeling, his hold on Pete tightening. His eyes shut and he takes a gasping breath, Pete’s heart twisting at the sight. Does Patrick feel the cold creatures waiting for him? Does he feel the moonlight sinking into the water? Does he know what comes next? Does he know how he’ll survive?

“Just put me in,” he says, though his eyes are squeezed shut. “Do it now.”

Now.

_Soon_

Pete tries to be gentle but it’s hard when his hands are shaking so. He tries to be slow but it’s difficult when the light of the sun has faded away completely.

He’s more than aware that this isn’t how life should be. He should be able to protect everyone he loves, not forced to pick and choose. He should be able to hold Patrick for as long as he can, to press against the magic beneath his skin and wait for the stars to rise completely. He should be allowed to love and be loved. He should be allowed more than the time they had.

Slowly, gently, but still all at once, Patrick is let into the waves. He clings to Pete for a second more, nearly pulling him in, but then he’s gone, head and body beneath the ocean and hidden in the darkness. Pete’s heart leaps to his throat and then stops, his chest feeling as hollow as a shell holding nothing but the memory of the ocean.

Seconds pass, or maybe days. Maybe nights. Maybe an eternity and Pete still hasn’t seen Patrick and those voices are gone and they said soon so maybe they—

Patrick rises from the water, a hand slamming against the rocks and the other wrapping in Pete’s shirt. Blue and gold rip into Pete’s soul for just an instant, breathlessness and longing buried in the impossible shades. For just a second, Pete stares back.

And then Patrick’s lips are on his own.

Pete’s hands find Patrick without a thought, pulling him halfway out of the water as they press together with desperate energies. It’s sudden and it’s terrible, only the taste of wishes traded between their lips. Pete’s mind goes dark enough for a thousand stars to be seen, lighting every shadow but proving that the shadows still exist.

Patrick’s chest is cold and wet against Pete’s own but nothing hurts more than the salt coating his lips. Are those tears or the ocean? The answer doesn’t matter, Pete thinks, for both were created to harm Patrick.

Gasps escape Pete when he tries to pull away, Patrick’s hand tugging him back with a force that must be otherworldly. He crushes their lips together once more and Pete fights back the tears wishing to fall. In any other world, he would love the feeling of Patrick clinging to him so tightly. In any other life, this moment would be nothing other than divine.

But in this world, their world, he knows Patrick’s holding him because he’s afraid. In this life, their life, this moment is a terrible thing Pete won’t ever have again.

Despite this, despite the pain and terror, Pete gives into the fantastic firework feelings that Patrick’s touch spreads across his skin. He revels in the intimacy of Patrick’s body pressed so close to his. He burns the explosive emotions of longing and passion into his soul, daring the world to make him forget this.

“Stay,” Patrick begs, pulling back just far enough to speak. Desperate and pleading and breaking with every breath, his voice sinks into Pete like a ship torn apart on the sea. “Everyone leaves me, please, please, tell me you will not do the same.”

Pete’s heart aches as he listens to Patrick’s words, cracking a little more with each hammering beat against his chest.

“Patrick,” he breathes, his own voice broken. “Patrick, I will come back, I swear to you. I won’t leave you here, I could never… I could never really leave you.”

Patrick’s shaking against Pete and his breath hiccups over sobs Pete can feel as clearly as if they were his own. “I  _need_ you!”

“You have the stars,” Pete breathes, shutting his eyes and swallowing down the lump forming in his throat. “You have the stars to keep you safe now.”

“The stars mean nothing if they cannot keep you here,” Patrick snaps, tensing in Pete’s hold.

“Patrick, I promise—”

“No,” Patrick says, pulling away. Night colors everything in blue but Pete can still see the redness of Patrick’s eyes. “No promises because you cannot know what will happen when you leave. Your memories will be gone and, one day, your dreams will be, too. You will grow tired of visiting the same beach every night and I will not blame you. If I could leave these waters… If I could leave this beach… Do not promise me anything, Pete. Promises only hurt when they break.”

Lightning strikes through Patrick’s eyes with a blue fire so brilliant Pete feels blinded by it.

“I  _will_ come back to you,” Pete swears, holding Patrick tighter than before. “And that’s not a promise; it’s a fact. The stars don’t need to promise they’ll rise, right? We just know that they will.”

Patrick’s eyes shut and he presses a cold hand to Pete’s cheek. “You have always been my sun, Pete, and, yes, I know the sun will rise. But that does not mean I am ever ready for it to set.”

“It’s not setting,” Pete murmurs. “It’s just making room for the other stars. Because I might be a sun but, Patrick, you’re an entire night sky.”

“I should not ask you to stay but the word is all I seem to know now,” Patrick says on a shattered breath. Pete shakes his head as Patrick shakes against him, lowering himself back into the ocean. A piece of Pete seems trapped with him— not captured, not captivated— and it tears at Pete’s chest the more Patrick slips away.

How can he ever write of this? How can he ever bring his readers to understand the feeling of losing someone the second you find them? How can he write of heartbreaks he won’t remember or dangers he has no power to stop? Can anyone comprehend the way it feels to be the one taking Patrick back to monster-infested waters? Will anyone care to know how horribly his heart is breaking?

There is nothing left to say, no promise or wishes to make, and Pete’s lips find better service by brushing against Patrick’s. Patrick’s lips feel like raindrops against Pete’s, beautiful by nature but meant to last for only a night. Too soon—  _soon soon soon,_ Pete despises the word— Patrick pulls away and the loss is nearly enough to have Pete changing his mind. He’ll fight back the monsters’ control, he swears. He’ll protect everyone from himself— it’s nothing he hasn’t tried before.

Patrick’s more than halfway into the waves, tail obscured by darkened waters and his middle steadily sinking.

“Patrick,” Pete breathes, reaching out. Patrick feels so far already, fading with every breath Pete takes.

Patrick grabs Pete’s hand and smiles. For the first time since arriving here, it doesn’t seem entirely fake.

“Your family needs you,” he says, pressing a kiss to the inside of Pete’s wrist. “Go be their lucky charm.”

Too soon, Patrick lets go of Pete’s hand. He pushes back from the rocks, that sad smile on his face, and Pete finally forces himself to stand.

Are there words he should be able to say? Is there any proper goodbye in a moment like this?

Pete doesn’t want to find out. If the last thing he says here is Patrick’s name, then so be it.

Turning his back feels like a betrayal in the worst way. Every step feels like a mistake and he’s reminded every option he doesn’t have. Stay, like Patrick asked, and take every chance. Take the risk, put everything on the line, fight harder than he has.

Or, maybe, he can just run back into the ocean and let the water put an end to it all. Let icy waves invade his lungs like that siren invaded his heart. That has to be better than what he’s doing now.

Because, now, when his feet hit the sand, the monsters aren’t cheering for  _soon_. They’re silent but he can feel them waiting. They’re still but he can sense them plotting, pulling slowly at his mind until they’re hidden in a corner they’ve created.

Patrick’s still above water when Pete takes one more glimpse back— breaking the rules of leaving a lover behind. He’s blurred by the distance and darkness but, somehow, he’s still perfect. Pete keeps his hands fisted at his side, frozen in place as Patrick waves once and then disappears beneath the water.

The rhythm of the waves breaks for only a second. Only a moment before it rights itself. Only an instant and then all proof of Patrick is gone.

The realization doesn’t hit Pete at once. It’s worse than that, wrapping around him with a cold touch and shattering every last piece of hope in his veins. The shards of what could have been— what should have been— dig into his chest with every breath he takes, poisoned tips echoing the fact throughout his mind.

Patrick is gone.

Pete’s knees give out first and he falls into the sand with no sound other than a broken gasp. His eyes hopelessly search the sea for proof that Patrick’s out there, that this is all a joke and his siren will be back by the rocks laughing about human emotions. He’s barely aware that his breaths have become so labored, falling forward and digging his hands into the sand. The sand that will make him forget; the sand that, supposedly, will help him to remember.

He doesn’t know when his eyes shut so tightly or when his throat begins to ache from how he’s choking on his breaths. He doesn’t know when the monsters in his mind begin to speak again— one word, over and over, until Pete himself doesn’t know what the word means.

 _Now,_ they say, their words dripping venom and staining into his thoughts like the blackest of ink. Pete shakes his head and tries not to understand, not to wonder or comprehend.

But the monsters laugh on, their voices lighting up Pete’s mind like a spray of junk-shop diamonds.

 _Now_ , they say. 

_Now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts and comments are always welcome <3


	16. Psychological

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thoughts, feelings, and motivations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates may be the tiniest bit delayed for the upcoming weeks since I"ll be visiting family. I'll do my best but feel free to check my Tumblr for updates! Folie-Aplusieurs is the name, I try to keep people posted over there.
> 
> As always, all the love to the_chaotic_panda for being such an amazing beta <3

 

_psychological novel_

_noun_

_a work of fiction in which the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of the characters are of equal or greater interest than is the external action of the narrative_

Pete’s nightmares are a rest-cure in comparison to the following hours. Packing and preparing to leave, working so quickly that the blur of monsters in his mind never has time to separate into individual voices. Words make it through the cacophony every other second—  _now_ and  _finally_ and  _ours_ — but he knows better than to give into the bait. He knows better than to run back outside despite how deeply he wants to. It’s night and the stars will still outnumber the moon, no matter how dim they seem each time Pete glances out a window. It’s night— Patrick is safe under its shroud for the next few hours, at least.

Pete doesn’t imagine any further than that; he wanders the house in a daze, almost numbed by the terror of it.

Better to pretend this night will last forever, he tells himself. Better to fall into daydreams where the sun is only a chain around his neck and the stars are all in Patrick’s eyes. No skies or mornings or nights; he imagines a world where every light comes from the sunrise Patrick causes in Pete’s veins.

But Pete’s sun is sunken to the bottom of the sea and, as far as he’s concerned, Patrick’s eyes were dripping with tears the last time he saw him. And stars are not beings which can cry— if they had any emotion or feeling, they would have never let Patrick slip away from him like this.

So, Pete focuses on his packing. He turns his mind towards his preparations. He brought so little with him that it only takes a few hours to store away, stuffed up suitcases and half-filled bags lingering next to the doorway by the time the monsters have drifted into an eerie silence. Sleep or schemes, he’s never been sure what they do at these times of quiet.

One more call to confirm with his mom that he’s coming home. One more check on the plane tickets he bought last minute. The flight times are unfavorable— a handful of moments after midnight— but it was a better option than booking a plane leaving weeks from now.

Or, he thinks, it felt like a better option. Patrick can take care of himself, right? He’s a siren and he has powers that were made to aid him. Pete has no reason to feel guilty for his sudden departure.

Right?

He shakes his head before doubts can answer. God knows he’s had too many of those tonight.

Again, he checks the house for items he may have missed. A few objects scatter across the house but those were left on purpose— pens and notebooks placed haphazardly on a desk, sheets still folded at the foot of a bed. They’re promises he will return, unspoken oaths that his absence won’t be permanent. He’s just going to visit his mom for a bit. He’s just going to take a break from this absurdity and then he’ll return. He has to, he’s sure.

Still, as he shuts and locks the back door, it feels too much like finality.

And, when he finds himself in an open bathroom door, it feels like an already broken promise.

The bathroom’s the one room he hadn’t had the heart to clean out yet, towels and water covering the floor like a carpet of opposites. Small bubbles cling to the bottom of the tub. Water drips off the side. On the floor, fallen and forgotten, a rubber duck rests with its beak pressed unhappily against the ground.

It takes longer than it should for Pete to move, to break his limbs free from the encasement of a broken heart, but it still feels too soon when he steps into the room.

Everything is an absence of Patrick. Everything is somewhere he should be filling, be it with laughter or a gentle smile. Everything is a reminder that he’s gone.

Pete’s throat aches and seems to swell as he turns on the bathtub faucet, splashing water— water that would be too warm for Patrick, as he’d once learned— onto the bubbles remaining. Some pop and some circle down the drain but, in a matter of seconds, all are gone. The faucet shuts off with a click, Pete twisting it a bit more harshly than he should.

The water on the sides is washed off next, scraped away without a blink, and then the fallen containers of shampoo and soap. Pete works without a thought in his mind, all memories of sirens and mermaids shoved far into the darkest corner of his brain. Even when his eyes begin to sting, even when his breaths become shallow, even when his hands shake… He keeps going. He keeps thinking about nothing at all.

He reaches for the last remaining object on the ground, already planning on folding up the towels next. Just this and then the towels and then he can leave this room, this cursedly silent and empty room. Just this and—

Rubber brushes his fingertips. It’s silly but it’s enough to make him go cold.

He tells himself not to look, not to give into the emotions tugging at his heart and mind. He tells himself it’s a stupid thing to get upset about but, when he does the idiotic thing and looks anyway, the sight of the brightly painted duck stops his breath in his throat.

 _“You all create such silly things,”_ Patrick had said.  _“We had nothing like this back home.”_

Would Patrick miss this stupid toy, Pete wonders? Would he, half-awake or half-asleep, reach for a duck that isn’t there? Would he yearn for the sudden squeaking which had brought him so much joy once before? Would he wish he could have it again? He had claimed to love it, how badly would he miss it?

And will he miss Pete in the same way?

Did he love Pete, too?

Cruel and searing, the vision of Patrick mouthing those words plays in his mind on a loop, a tease of something Pete can never truly hear. How can three words carry so much weight? Pete hadn’t realized how much he’d yearned to hear it, to say it, until the chance was torn away. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to be sure Patrick knew how he felt until it became impossible to fulfill such reassurance. Even now, the phrase bubbles up in his throat like a poison.

How can not hearing those words create such misery? How can not saying them make him feel so terrible?

The duck falls from his hands, bouncing lightly, and Pete covers his own ears, doubling over on his knees and tearing his nails into his skin. Pain blossoms within his skull but it’s no match for the burning in his chest. It’s nothing compared to the knot in his throat or the fire behind his eyes. He shakes, gasping for a breath he kissed into Patrick the second they said their goodbyes.

All at once— too soon and too much, too late and too little— something within him breaks. He screams and sobs, the sound muffled but still thundering to his covered ears. He shouts and he screams and he curses every star that decided it was fair to ever put Patrick in his life. Tears appear, at last, mocking him with their ocean-like embrace, salt and water mixing on his face only to remind him of what he lost— what he gave away. He shuts his eyes but they continue their searing path down his cheeks. They grant him no reprieve, no salvation from his thoughts of the siren. He cries out for a creature who can’t hear him. He screams for the one person who ever had the power to save him.

He falls apart for someone he couldn’t save. What’s the point of having someone to care for if he can’t keep them safe in the end? What’s the point of these emotions if they only bring him, and everyone else, pain?

What’s the point of him if he couldn’t keep someone like Patrick— someone perfect and golden and always meant to be safe— away from the dangers that have forever haunt Pete?

What’s the point of living another second if Patrick isn’t promised another day?

Nightmares and reality clash in his mind, terror and horror replacing the blood in his veins. The room around him disappears with his next scream, collapsing into darkness.

Darkness lit only by Best Buy lights.

His eyes are shut but he can see their blue and yellow shades— blue and gold, stars and eyes and a beacon of death— gleam across his skin, refracted and distorted by a cracking windshield. He can feel the weight of a dozen promises in his palm, their yellow dye sinking into his sweating hand— the warnings across the blue label on the bottle plays in his head.

Blue and yellow and gold and dark. He shuts his eyes against it all, screaming with a breath that’s always had an expiration date.

He screams and he cries and he shouts, praying for a flash of forgiving green scales or the promise of understanding in a sugar-sweet voice. Patrick, his siren, his sugar pill, his delusion that he could be getting better. He can write a book without spilling his blood over the ink. He can create something beautiful without selling a piece of his sanity.

No, of course not. This— falling apart on a bathroom floor, breaking in time with the ticking of a clock— is far more his style.

Minutes pass like hours. Seconds crawl by like days.

And Pete spends the night the way he always does: curled up, crying, and calling out for something impossible.

When sleep captures him at last, it’s in the middle of a choking scream.

~

Once, Pete would have woken to the sight of Patrick’s gently swishing tail.

Once, Pete might have smiled as Patrick’s eyes fluttered open and his nose crinkled in preparation for the day.

Once, Pete’s greeting— be it morning or dawn— was a flip in his stomach at the most beautiful being he’s ever seen.

Today, though, as monsters circle his mind and the sun begins to rise, Pete’s only companions are dried tracks of tears and an achingly sore throat.

For a few seconds, it feels a bit like he’d spent the night drowning.

Like too many things, he shakes the thought away as he stands. He wipes away the tears, clears his throat. Sleep still clings to him like a cloak but sleep, at least, dulls the senses. Pete doesn’t need to worry about pain or fear when he’s still contemplating shutting his eyes.

Every time he blinks, though, a certain shade of blue or gold fills the darkness that should be there. Each time, he bites his lip and shoves the image to the back of his mind.

It’s day and Patrick’s either asleep or gone in every horrible sense of the word. Pete’s flight leaves sometime between tonight and tomorrow and the sun calls him to make things easier, to pretend leaving this place won’t matter.

The bathroom door shuts, at last, the room dark and filled with nothing but the memories Pete tore free from his mind last night.

Don’t turn towards the backyard or glimpse through the windows. Don’t linger at the back door or wonder if Patrick’s voice could be heard from here. Don’t think about Patrick, at all. They’re all rules he’s familiar with, created for messy breakups and fights, but it still takes every piece of his will to keep from breaking them. He doesn’t consider his cold shoulder a victory until the bags and suitcases are in his hands and the call he’d scheduled to pick him up— god knows he’d sooner crash a car than drive it away from Patrick— honks from the driveway.

No turning back. No second glances or hesitations. Two doors have shut already and, now, he just waits at the threshold of the third.

Third time’s the charm, right?

Perhaps that’s true; Pete’s charm, though, is in the waves he’s turned his back on.

Every step down the driveway is like wading through rising waters. The bags in his hands are anchors tied to his wrists, dragging him deeper into the despair roaring through his mind. Even when they’re taken from his hands and tossed into the trunk, the weights remain.

“You gonna close your door?” The driver inquires, leaning against the side of the car and jangling his keys. He’s got sunglasses on but the raised eyebrows are still tell-tale of his judgments.

Pete swallows thickly, somehow seeming emptier than before with nothing to fill his hands and time.

“Yeah,” he says. “Of course.”

Third time might be the charm but he still drags his feet back up the path. Third time might be the charm but he still expects the handle to burn him when he grabs it.

The door doesn’t slam the way it should, no sound of finality or closure. It’s nothing more than the click of a latch and the twist of his keys in the lock.

“Ready?” The driver’s already back in the front seat, window rolled down. “Sir, are you ready?”

 _Never_ , he thinks.  _Never._

“Yeah,” he says, shutting his eyes and turning around. No more tears; no more concerns. “Of course.”

He’s a writer and perhaps that’s given him a bit of a control complex. With a flick of his wrist and a dance with a typewriter, characters are given life and entire worlds. Mere thoughts become a universe and he can predict every aspect. He can protect who he chooses; he can stop a scene before it has the chance to begin.

People like to pretend writers have powers and that’s the biggest bullshit he’s ever heard. Sure, he can create people for readers to love and, yes, dialogue and emotions are as easy to bleed as blood. But he can’t erase the things he hates out here in the “real world” — as if that phrase has any meaning anymore. He can’t protect anything that he’s touched with something other than a pen.

He climbs into the back of the car, craving the semblance of isolation it provides. He bites his lip and looks away from the house, pulling the car door shut.

This time, the slam echoes through his thoughts and refuses to ever end.

~

“Wait,” Pete says, a few short moments into the drive. “Stop here.” He leans forward into the driver’s space, earning a less frustrated glare than he deserves, and points at a familiar shop.

“Sure thing,” the driver says, bored and tired. “Just be quick, ‘right? We don’t get paid to wait around.”

“Yeah, ‘kay. Just gotta take care of a few things.” The words are rushed and Pete’s sure half of them are lost in his hurry to leave the car, though he is careful not to slam the door this time. They’re parked across the street from the Uries’ shop but he reaches the other side in no time at all.

As always, Brendon’s preoccupied and doodling on some receipt paper at the counter, hair a mess and lips pressed together as he hums. It’s almost enough to make the day seem normal. It’s almost enough to remind him of—

“Hey,” Pete says, interrupting his own thoughts. “Brendon, is your… Is your dad around?”

Brendon’s head shoots up and his eyes dart towards the office, his calmness leaving in the time it takes for his pen to hit the counter. It’s only a second that he watches the office door but, when he turns back towards Pete, there are already a half dozen excuses building in his eyes.

“Uh, he, uh, well,” Brendon stops, running a hand through his hair and growing increasingly red. “He doesn’t want to, er, talk to people today? Yeah, like, he’s totally caught up on—”

“Okay, so he doesn’t want to talk to me. That’s fine,” Pete interrupts, stepping forward and closing the gap between himself and the counter. Brendon’s eyes widen but Pete’s voice is soft, hushed, in case Mr. Urie decides to grace them with an unexpected presence. “It’s because he thinks I talk to monsters, right?”

Brendon goes even redder than before. “He doesn’t say it like that, but—”

Pete waves his words off. He promised he’d be quick and he’s intent on keeping whatever promises he can— as if that can make up for all the ones he’s broken.

“Do  _you_ think I do?” He asks. Brendon bites his lip, hard enough Pete fears he may harm himself, but then lets go with a sharp nod.

“I don’t think they’re monsters or whatever my dad says but I think you talk to something out there. I saw you, dude, those first few weeks you were here. And then you locked yourself up in your house and started acting weird whenever you came around.” Brendon’s eyes, averted and unsure, find Pete’s with slight suspicion in them. “You seem good but it’s all really weird.”

It’s a fair enough assessment and kinder than Pete deserves after the ways he’s spoken to the boy’s father. But Brendon doesn’t know what his father has done, doesn’t know who he’s hurt. The thought alone— the cracking voice retelling brokenhearted sorrows and memories of mistrust— nearly has him storming out of the store or, if he thinks too much of the scar on Patrick’s skin, into Mr. Urie’s office.

Pete takes a breath, a second in which Brendon’s eyes narrow further. Pete knows he’s acting strange— it seems to be a specialty, after all— but Brendon, strangely enough, is the only one Pete feels like trusting now.

“I can’t tell you everything,” he says, digging in his pockets. “It’s not my story to tell, ironic as that’ll seem months from now.” He scoffs at himself, finally pulling his hands free and reaching for Brendon’s. The keys to the house are still cool in his hand and he wonders if that’s why Brendon flinches once they’re pressed into his palm. He wonders if his father’s corrupted his thoughts of the ocean so much already. But Brendon doesn’t pull away and that’s all the encouragement Pete needs. “I need you to do me a favor, though. Can you… Would you, please, watch the house? Until I get back? And if anything goes wrong, anything seems the littlest bit off, will you call me? I can leave my number or email or whatever you need just… Just take care of it. Please.”

Brendon takes his hand back, the keys in his fist like a burden being passed down. He stares at his hand, jaw tense. “There’s something in there, isn’t there? Just like my dad says.”

“Not in the house,” Pete says. “But in the ocean? Yes.”

The monsters, silent since he’d screamed he was leaving, twist and Pete jerks at their presence.

 _You won’t hurt this boy, either_ , he thinks as if they can hear his thoughts.  _You won’t ever have the chance to touch him_.

“Check up on it a few times a week, whenever you have the time. I’ll pay you for it, obviously. Just don’t go in the water and, if you have to, don’t go in during the day.” Pete’s voice grows more desperate with each claim, panicked whispers he no longer tries to fight back. “And promise me,  _promise me_ , you’ll take care of it. It’s a place that needs company and it’ll only really like it at night but it’ll be fine if you go a bit before sunset, too. The stars are brighter there but they aren’t enough, not really, to be a good watch so, god, please, Brendon, take care of him for me. Please.”

A second where no one breathes passes by like a racing car.

When Brendon speaks, it’s with none of the fear Pete knows he should have.

“It,” he says. “You want me to take care of  _it_.” For someone so young, he says it with an authority Pete’s lost in the past few days. He’s not correcting Pete’s word choice, not treating it as a slip-up. No, there’s something deeper in the way Brendon speaks. There’s something knowing in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Pete breathes, looking down. “Take care of it.”

Brendon doesn’t speak but his nod is kind. When he places the keys into his pocket, patting the spot a few times to be sure they’ll stay put, a fraction of Pete’s burden lifts. He’s not out of the panic yet— in fact, he knows he never will be— but a small stream of oxygen makes its way to his lungs without a hitch. His heart beats without worry for a few blessed seconds.

Brendon clears his throat and Pete backs away, the moment passed and his panic back.

“So, uh, did you need anything else?” Brendon asks, eyes averted again. From the way he’s acting, one would think Pete’s asked him to commit a crime or risk his life.

From the experience of the past few months, Pete’s not so certain he didn’t.

“Um,” Pete glances around the store, pretending to consider knickknacks and souvenirs. His ingenuine farewell forms in his mind, words meant to convey emotion but prevent their sensation within him. Brendon would see through it but it’s a social convention anyway and— And something catches Pete’s eye, something small and displayed at the front of the counter. Something he nearly forgot.

Forgot. The word sends chills down his spine.

“Is this… Is this actually from the beach?” Pete asks, reaching towards the display. It’s one of those Beach In A Bottle tourist things, small vials no bigger than Pete’s thumb filled with sand and tiny shells. It’s not as nicely crafted as Pete’s seen before— the ribbon around the neck is frayed and the sand barely fills half the bottle— but he holds it delicately between his fingers, surprisingly steady though all his body wants to do is tremble. “The sand, that is. Is it from the beach?”

Brendon’s eyebrows furrow together. “Of course. We don’t lie to our customers and it’s a cute idea, isn’t it? Collecting the sand and shells is actually pretty fun, too. Way better than hanging around an empty shop and stocking—”

“I’ll take one,” Pete says, setting the tiny bottle down and already reaching for his wallet. Brendon’s eyes widen once more but he says nothing, ringing the item up and reading off the few dollars Pete owes in exchange. Pete hands over the crumpled bills without hesitation, not waiting for his change as he plucks the vial up and cradles it in his palm. To any other tourist or traveler, the price is probably grossly overestimated and more something to scoff at rather than consider. But if this does what Pete believes it will… If Brendon’s honest about where this sand is from…

This bottle, to Pete, is priceless.

But it’s also a temptation to run back to the house he left, to the creature he imagines must be waiting for him in the back. It’s a tease of what he’s leaving behind, a reminder of what he’ll remember or forget.

Pete can’t wait in this town any longer; he leaves the store and runs back to the car, Brendon calling after him with confusion and curiosity in his tone.

When Pete’s back in the car, he’s greeted with the same sound in the driver’s voice. “Was a bit quick, I suppose. To the airport, then?”

“Yeah,” Pete says, breathless when the car begins to move. “As fast as you can get there.”

The airport’s not far enough away for Pete to test his dreams but it doesn’t matter. As the town line passes beneath the car wheels, Pete’s memories remain. They invade his mind like water in a hole, filling every possible crack until he’s certain his skull may burst.

_Blue-gold eyes like Starry Night. Hair as fine as spun-gold, skin as cool as the water around him. A shaking smile on his pretty pink lips. A clawed hand on the rocks, pulling himself up, and another offering a stone back to Pete._

Pete wonders when these thoughts are meant to disappear, when they’ll supposedly dissolve from his mind only to return as dreams. Miles tick away like minutes and Pete’s heart pounds with the ever-vivid images in his mind. Will Patrick endure there? Will Pete remember?

_Patrick’s eyes are wide as they look at Pete, his mouth parted but no sound escaping. Pete pulls and tightens his grip, not caring about what bruises he may leave._

When the car stops and Pete unloads, making his way through the airport with a blurred mind and dazed eyes, he wonders whether the curse would be to forget or remember.

_Patrick, whose eyes blaze a scorching amber shade._

_Patrick, who’s unaffected and unbothered by the boiling water surrounding him._

Moments pass into hours and Pete could sleep if only his mind would still enough for him to rest. The mermonsters are gone— empty rather than silent, vanished instead of hidden— but their vacancy only makes room for thoughts he’d believed he wouldn’t remember by now. The beach is far behind him and the sun is setting now. Is he supposed to still remember? Should these thoughts still be in his head?

 _Patrick’s shaking hands are caught in Pete’s, his red-gold hair soaking into the other’s shirt when he lets his head fall forward. Pete’s leaning into the bath as far as he can, playing the role of comfort with only his experience as the victim for reference._  
  
Pete boards the plane half-asleep, half-mad. Moments where he should have done better, instances where he could have done differently, echo cruelly and coldly through his mind as he walks with numb limbs. He thought he wanted to remember and perhaps this is what he wished. Perhaps this is the stars granting him a favor. Maybe he should feel as lucky as Patrick says he is.

_Blue eyes, glinting with stardust and promise, meet Pete’s, closer than they were before. Patrick’s hand fists in Pete’s shirt, tugging him down. Full lips— pink and soft— rest a heartbeat away._

Pete only feels insane.

Selfishly, he wonders if it would be better if he had no reason to remember these emotions. This constant ache in his chest, the burning in his mind, the way each breath feels like it should be his last… He wonders if it would all disappear if he forgot the cause for their existence.

Horribly, he wonders if Patrick feels the same way, if he’s gasping and begging the stars to help him disremember. Because Pete thought he wanted to remember and Patrick had cried for him to do so but, now, Pete finds this worse than any torture those monsters ever tried to inflict. Nightmares are nothing in the face of leaving a loved one. Distorted dreams and half-planned attacks are child’s play in comparison to the hundreds of miles now between him and Patrick— miles Pete could never cross in time to stop his heart from breaking further.

The bottle of sand rests nuzzled in his jacket pocket, wrapped up in tissues taken from the airport restroom. As he stares into the darkness outside his window— a darkness that only appears when one is so close to the stars— he wonders if it would be better to break it and see what the stars do next.

The stars, though, only put him to sleep.

_Patrick’s lips meet Pete’s and the world becomes a supernova behind Pete’s eyes— brilliantly explosive, outshining galaxies and beaming more radiantly than the sun ever could— and he returns the action without a moment of hesitation._

The stars bless him with soothing dreams and a deep rest he never asked for.

_“Stay,” Patrick begs, pulling back just far enough to speak. Desperate and pleading and breaking with every breath, his voice sinks into Pete like a ship torn apart on the sea. “Everyone leaves me, please, please, tell me you will not do the same.”_

The stars play his favorite moments and most hated times on repeat, their gentle touch rivaled only by the ghost of Patrick’s in his mind.

_Eyes as starry as the night— blue with an inner rim of gold— reveal themselves first, emerging from the water with the same trepidation Pete had felt before. Placed among pale skin, kissed by the moon and embraced by the sea, those blue-gold eyes stare at Pete— the same way Pete feels he is staring at him._

_Hair as gold as those eyes, a tinge of red where the light hits just right, pressed against the moonlit skin of his face and neck, pasted there by the saltwater sticking to his skin. Reddened lips, parted in awe, and long eyelashes fluttering against soft cheeks._

_Everything about him is beautiful._

The stars grant him memories in the form of dreams.

~

Pete wakes as the plane touches the ground.

Pete wakes with a crick in his neck but with a smile on his lips.

Pete wakes with a new confidence in the book he’s written.

But, most importantly?

Pete wakes with a curious feeling and with the strangest dream of a merman with blue-gold eyes. 


	17. Fiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imaginary events and people

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay but I hope you enjoy regardless! 
> 
> As always, all the love to the_chaotic_panda for being such an amazing beta <3 

 

_fic·tion_

_noun_

_  
literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people_

Pete’s mom meets him at the airport, smiling with her arms open. It’s more than her usual greeting— more emotional than it needs to be given that Pete hadn’t disappeared for longer than a season— but Pete returns the action with equal fervor. It takes all of Pete’s will to keep from dropping his bags and running to her like a child who’d been lost in a shopping mall. Relief eases muscles he hadn’t known were tense, bringing a soft smile to his own face in a manner he can’t quite understand.

“It’s good to have you back. Your sister was so excited to hear you were headed our way,” his mom says, still wrapped in an overly exuberant hug. “Did the beach treat you well?”

Breath catches in Pete’s throat and his embrace tightens. His eyes shut and, for an instant, he sees nothing but the cracks of gold against blue.

By the time his eyes are open again with nothing but the pale expanse of an overcast sky outside smudged windows, the vision is all but forgotten.

“I wrote my book,” he says, the words equally certain yet unsure. “I think it’s my favorite one.”

His mom pulls back, little peals of laughter keeping Pete warm in their familiarity. “Oh, you think, do you? Well, don’t keep me in suspense, now. What’s this one about?”

Concern waits beneath the curiosity, dissections under the discussion. Yes, what’s Pete Wentz written now? What delusions— what disease and disturbances— have been revealed between pretty words and purple prose? Is he worse? Is he broken? Is he healed?

“A siren,” he says. “It’s… It’s different from what I usually do but I like it.”

His mom sighs. Whether it’s relief or dissatisfaction, he’s unsure.

“As long as you like it,” she says. “Now, let’s go home.”

Pete nods, smiling at the words.

Still, it takes longer than it should for him to tear his eyes away from the spots of blue peeking through the clouds.

~

City life and family time take hold with a vengeance, making up for lost time by filling every second Pete has. Minutes and hours are ripped from his fingers by friends and relatives claiming it’s been too long or that they’ve grown too far apart— as if the few months were to blame for the distance Pete’s spent years carving out.

Still, he knows when the world wants to see a bright-eyed smile; he’s never been one to easily let the expectation down.

His sister, Hillary, is better than he’d expected, on crutches and lined with scars that do nothing to mar her teasing grin, and Pete finds himself wondering what the rush back was all about. Driving his mom around on her errands and joining Hillary on her walks to work are all important tasks, he knows, but there was an urgency when he boarded that plane. There was a sick feeling in his stomach, a twisting of his guts.

Now, with his mom’s ever-present smile and Hillary’s sisterly taunts, Pete’s unsure why those feelings ever occurred.

Fortunately, he’s hardly granted the time to ponder these emotions, let alone the stranger ones resting in the back of his mind. Promises of loss or want, an inner turmoil of something that could have been— that should have been, if he lingers here long enough. Sometimes, if he reflects on these darkened corners, he swears stars appear.

Sadness, though, is all the stars have to shine upon— a deep aching wound trying to heal without the proper focus or attention. So Pete keeps his eyes away, keeps his mind from wandering too far back. Pain’s not meant to be a friend, no matter how often he’s tried to make it so.

Besides, by the time he’s realized the curiosity over those emotions was there, life’s busy plans have tightened their hold.

His agent’s voice is bigger in the shared space of his mom’s apartment, screeching through the speaker with demands for the manuscript she trusts he finished. Though, as always, Amy, his agent, uses the term  _trust_ quite loosely.

“I’m not trying to be a bother,” she sighs. “But you must realize that a deadline is like a promise and these publishers aren’t the kind of people to accept flimsy oaths.”

Those cold feelings— chilled and uncomfortable— spread through his guts, dulling quick enough for him to move the conversation on without a hitch.

“Come on, haven’t we worked together long enough for you to know I don’t break my promises?” He asks. Rhetorical, yes, but she answers it all the same.

“Well, one can never know with you,” Amy says. It’s probably not meant to be cruel but it still brings Pete’s actions— watering his mom’s houseplants while she’s refilling Hillary’s painkillers— to a sudden stop.

“The hell does that mean?” He asks. Through the phone, he hears another sigh.

“Nothing, Peter,” she says, the name spat out like he’s a toddler being scolded for the last time. If he shuts his eyes, if he even blinks, he can clearly see the sour turn of lips that everyone wears when saying the name. It’s not quite the writer-agent relationship advertised in popular media but it’s real, at least, and Pete doesn’t have to feel the hurt as deeply as he would if it were from someone pretending to put up with him. “Not what you’re thinking, anyway.”

“And what am I thinking?” He doesn’t bother twisting her name, pulling out  _Amelia_ because he knows that’s a pretty name. It’s something that would only sound wrong because it’s on his lips. “Am I thinking about the books everyone thinks about when they see my name? The way my own mother wants to read over every damn manuscript to make sure it’s not another suicide note or, worse, another confession? Am I thinking about the lack of trust or—”

“Enough.” Amy’s voice brings him away from his monologue, cutting it away like scissors across a script he’s spent too long reading from. It’s harsh and it’s cruel, taking away all context and leaving him to look irrational underneath the stage lights his own words have brought him. “Just send the manuscript over, okay? I’ll shoot it out to the editors that have been asking for it and then get back to you on any deals. With luck, we’ll have you with the same company as your first book but, based on the synopsis you so vaguely gave over text last night, we may have to look for publishers marketing towards a younger audience.”

Pete takes a few deep breaths, still reeling from the previous insults, before responding. “Younger?”

“Well, of course.” Amy doesn’t sound mocking or derisive this time. Instead, there’s only shock that Pete wouldn’t have considered this. “You used the word merman, Peter. Only a few writers can pull off adult fantasy without it coming across as overly metaphorical or, god forbid, childish. Better to aim at the audience that accepts such things without hesitation. Besides, quite a few teens favor your style so they’ll probably accept the shift.”

“But I was… I was writing for…” For who? For himself? For the audience that’s been following him for years? Or was it for someone else? A muse, an unknown reader that he knows requires this story most?

Amy doesn’t let him finish and, for once, Pete’s grateful. He’s not certain he knew how that sentence was going to end.

“Come now,” she says, a placating tone covering the words like frosting on a cardboard cake. “Do you really expect any adult readers to like a merman?”

Pete’s silent, holding back defenses— holding back his very breath.

He’s silent.

And then—

“He’s a siren,” he says. “And everyone is going to love him.”

~

By the end of the first week, exhaustion has already filled the extra bedroom of his mom’s apartment and coated Pete’s bones with a finesse it learned long ago. He’s barely noticed a week has passed, his memories caught up on the dozens of people he’d spoken to and the hundred of chores he’d been tossed.

Time for relaxation, time for himself, doesn’t appear until Sunday night. Hillary’s asleep on the couch, too tired to hobble to her room though Pete had offered to help. His mom’s out with some friends, a time Pete assured her she deserved. She’ll be back any time, though, if she’s the same she’s always been— running back home to her children despite their age and proven maturity. Though no one’s ever said it, Pete’s sure he’s the reason for her constant concern. It’s something he’s never learned the proper way to apologize for.

Resting on his bed with a notebook in his lap— more for habit than use— Pete shakes these thoughts away, careful not to dislodge any sour feelings free from where they were pressed years ago. Some things— apologies and confessions— are better left unsaid.

For some reason, the thought pulls a bittersweet taste onto his tongue anyway.

As always, Pete avoids pondering the meaning of such emotion and tosses his notebook to the side, groaning as he pulls himself from the bed. It’s better to ignore the confusion such feelings bring and, though no one’s vying for his attention anymore, he still has ways to distract himself. Writing’s usually his number one way out but, tonight, the words won’t appear. They taunt him from the safety of shadows he dare not venture into, smirking like stars he was never meant to grasp. He’s sure the words are beautiful, certain that they’ll take him to worlds he’d never known could exist, but he turns away from them tonight. Maybe he’ll find the strength to write them one day but, for now, he feels safer in his ignorance.

His notebook calls to him as he stands but he doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he focuses on one of the bags left unpacked, a small duffle bag left by the bedroom door. There’s nothing important in it— he’d unpacked all the necessities with the help of his mother days ago— but it’ll give him something to do, at least.

Once unzipped, he’s not surprised to find that most of the contents are clothes. Half his other bags had been filled with the same— the rest containing more boring things, empty notebooks and pencils and pens— and it’s not like he found anything interesting in the small beach town. Souvenirs have never entertained him and he has few memories of leaving the house, anyway. He doesn’t know whether to sigh or laugh at his own drabness so he keeps his expression neutral, guarded as if someone were watching.

A chill goes down his spine at the thought— another unexplained reaction he’s never had before. Perhaps he did pick something up from the beach house; a thought that, this time, he allows himself to smile at.

Folding clothes and putting them away are boring tasks but Pete thinks only of the work, determined not to discover any other new emotions or sensations left over by too much salted air or isolation. Fabric presses against his fingertips and he clings tightly to each shirt or jacket he lifts, letting their familiar materials ground him to his actions.

Don’t consider the time at the beach.

Don’t admit it left a lasting mark.

Don’t wonder where those marks came from, whether they’re scars or something more.

Don’t get caught on dreams or nightmares, their nets tossed across his mind and only waiting to capture his sanity.

Don’t think of colors that never used to have any meaning, blues and golds and greens and—

Don’t.

Pete doesn’t let himself think at all. It works for a few minutes, for the fraction of time that he’s putting away clothes and huffing quietly to himself. It works.

And then he comes across something strange within the bag. Something small and smooth and out of place. Something he doesn’t remember placing in there, even if he has the faintest memories of pressing it into a shirt pocket with more care than it warrants. It must have fallen free from the pocket when he’d tossed his shirt into the bag, too busy to think of laundry rooms or hampers.

Too busy to remember that, for some reason he can’t recall, he’d bought a bottle of sand.

Breath stops in his throat at the sight, hot and cold and choking him. He remembers buying the stupid thing but he can’t remember why, can’t understand what possessed him to waste money on it. Emotion? Inspiration? Impulse?

No answer feels right and Pete’s terrified of the implications. Another thing that won’t add up, another piece of a story he played in but can’t remember writing. Terror becomes anger and he pinches the bottle tightly, wondering how much force it would take for it to break. Already, he imagines he can feel the cracks forming beneath his fingers. Just a little tighter, just a second longer and—

His phone rings, a sharp sort of melodic that causes the bottle to slip from his hands and back onto the clothes it had emerged from. He doesn’t bother worrying about whether or not it shattered. Somehow, he’s certain he would know if it had— perhaps a piece of soul is trapped within the sand, it would explain the brief panic he felt the second it was gone from his touch.

The phone continues to ring, refusing to let him focus on anything else for long. With a heavy sigh, he turns from the bag and grabs the phone from his bed.

“Hey,” he says without checking the ID. “Uh, Pete. Wentz. Peter Wentz. Who is this?”

“Mr. Wentz.” A woman’s chirpy voice fills his ear, far too bright for his liking. It’s almost familiar but he’s too tired to try and place it. “I’m sorry for contacting you so late but I was leaving the office and came across your file. Did you still want to put your beach property back on the market?”

“My… My- On the market?” He stutters over his words, sitting back down on the floor and furrowing his eyebrows together. “I’m sorry, I just got back this week so I’m kind of still adjusting. Remind me who this is?”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” the woman says, thankfully sounding like she means it. “I know how busy the moving process can be. This is Julie? From Computerized Realty? You bought the beach house with us at the beginning of the year but made it very clear that you wouldn’t want it past the summer. I tried to advise a rental or timeshare but you seemed adamant that—”

“Right, okay, I remember,” Pete says, rubbing at the place between his eyebrows to fight off a rising headache. “Yeah, so, can I sell it? If I need to?”

“Of course,” Julie says. “You’d just need to meet with a representative and we can work out the pricing. You’d have all the time you need to retrieve your belongings and move any remaining residents out, as well as—”

“Remaining residents?” Pete interrupts. Julie takes a second to reply, her breath sounding irritated, but Pete doesn’t waste time apologizing.

“We sent someone down that way to see if you were still there? You hadn’t let us know that you had already left so one of our brokers decided to come speak with you about selling the house,” she explains. “You weren’t there, obviously, but your friend answered. Brandon or something like that?”

“Brendon.” The answer is quicker than Pete expected, images of the boy’s beaming expression and kind-hearted eyes filling his mind for merely a second. He’d run into him a few times at the store— him and his less than pleasant father, a man filled with nothing more than bad manners and superstition. Had Pete really left him the key to his home? A young teen with nothing better to do with his summer than stock a family-owned shop?

Before the questions fully take shape in his mind, he already knows the answer. Next to his memories of the boy are vivid reminders of the last time he spoke, a cool key passed between hands like a secret Pete no longer remembers. He recalls Brendon’s wide eyes and hushed tone, the way he implied something— some _one_ — may have been in the house, as well.

Or was Pete the one to imply that? The muddled memories only serve to confuse him. Suddenly, Julie’s call seems like a godsend. What better way to leave these strange feelings behind than to reject their source completely?

His time at the beach is nothing more than a blur and he’s no more content because of it— he isn’t the changed man a more romantic-minded person may have believed the summer would make of him. He’d escaped to the house in order to free himself from the confines of city life and all its expectations. Maybe he even imagined it was a chance to find himself or to better connect with the world; somehow, though, he only feels as if he’s more detached from reality than he ever was before.

“Brendon. Of course,” Julie says as if she had known the name all along. “Were you thinking of transferring ownership to him?”

“What? No, no, of course not. He’s just a kid,” Pete says, running a hand down his face as he clumsily stumbles upon a decision. “Look, can I… Do I have to be so involved in the selling process? I can call Brendon and let him know that I’m not headed back but I’m really busy with family and work so I can’t do much more than that. Is there any way I can just give you guys permission to sell the house? You can keep me updated if you want but I probably won’t be much use until my sister’s back on her feet.”

Julie’s silent for a second, nothing but the shuffling of papers and the clicks of someone typing on the other end. It’s a harmony Pete’s familiar with, intimately so.

“That could work,” Julie says at last. “So, just to confirm, you do want to sell the house?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Pete says, sighing. “It was just for the summer, right? Not like I plan on going back or—”

He makes the mistake of glancing across the room, caught in a gentle scoff. His eyes scan the bags left unpacked, the sense that perhaps they’re meant to stay that way. Light fills the room in an artificial manner, paling in comparison to the sunlight always streaming in through the beach house windows.

Pete should shut his eyes before he changes his mind and sends Julie, nice sounding woman just trying to do her job, into as much whiplash confusion as he’s had the past few days.

But then his eyes catch on the bottle of the sand and everything in his mind— reason telling him he’ll never return to the beach house, logic explaining he’s needed more in the city— implodes. Excuses crash against the coarseness of his unexplained emotions, longing and desire to return to sky-blue oceans and the golden beach. His words collapse against the sense that he’s wrong, that to leave the house would be to break another promise.

It doesn’t make sense but what part of Pete’s life ever does?

“Mr. Wentz,” Julie says and Pete falls out of his own thoughts with the realization she’s been trying to speak to him. “Mr. We—”

“Don’t sell it,” he says, trying to untangle himself from the mess of thoughts swarming his mind but feeling certain he’s only tied the knots tighter. “I think, I— Just don’t. Not yet.”

Again, silence. Somehow, when she speaks, Julie only sounds curious.

“Are you sure?” She asks. The sound of typing fills Pete’s ears once more and he stands to the beat of it, reaching for the bottle of sand and holding it delicately in his palm.

“I’m positive,” he says. He places the bottle down on his nightstand, close to the pillow. It’s still a silly thing— nothing more than a tourist’s token— but it looks right. Even under the unflattering light bulbs of the apartment, atop a dusty stand with crumbs and empty water bottles, the sand seems to glow.

“Alright, well, I’ll let the broker know.” Julie clicks on her keyboard a few more times, the sound interrupted only by the few scribbles she must be making on a loose piece of paper— something to keep her busy at the end of the day. “If I may ask, what changed your mind?”

Pete can’t tear his eyes from the sand or miniature shells scattered with it. Something warm start to build in his chest, something that he— a wordsmith, a writer, a poet— cannot begin to name.

“It’s not anyone’s fault,” he assures her with a soft tone. “I just think I received a sign that I’ll go back someday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always welcome! <3


	18. Romanticism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An emphasis on the imagination and emotions (and a predilection for melancholy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so late, I'm sorry! I got caught up in traveling with a few friends and then I hit a creative rut. Back on schedule now, though! Speaking of which, Thursdays are going to be the update days over the summer. Hope that works for everyone!
> 
> As always, all the love to the_chaotic_panda for being such a wonderful beta reader <3 Love ya!

_ro·man·ti·cism_

_noun_

_a literary, artistic, and philosophical movement characterized by an emphasis on the imagination and emotions; it is marked especially in English literature by the use of autobiographical material, an appreciation of external nature, and a predilection for melancholy  
_

 

Sleep’s never been a sure thing but it’s never been as bad as it feels now. Home, a place away from work and surrounded by two people he adores, should feel safe and the comfort of his mom’s guest bedroom mattress should lull him into a simple sleep, if not an easy one. In years past, he’d been able to rest beneath his mom’s favorite quilts and spend the night with the sounds of the city behind him, a cadence he could never capture with words. Over time, this noise turned to static but the room remained dark and his nights kept their peace.

Until now, when his skin seems to itch for sand and he pretends passing cars carry the same whooshing sounds of the ocean. Now, when his eyes won’t stay shut for more than a moment and he’s willing himself to pass out with every lost second of sleep.

Now, when he’s more like an old man afflicted with memories he can’t quite remember. Or perhaps he’s more a child suffering from the promise of dreams he’ll forget before the starlight has had a chance to warm them. Either way, images circle his mind like creatures from the deepest parts of the world, taunting him with colors and sounds he shouldn’t know exists. As he waits in bed— for sleep, for answers, for something in between— he reaches out into his mind but every thought slips away, mere sand between his fingers— or water from his skin.

Tonight is no different as phrases with no meaning— phrases like “I promise…” and “stay” and “in your dreams” — dance their melancholic waltz across the webs that struggle to connect each word to an unexplained emotion. Emotions which were never voiced, feelings which have no statements to speak for them. Sadness lingers in these words but no one speaks of desperation; warmth radiates from the back of his mind but nothing calls for love.

So, when Pete falls asleep at last, he falls asleep like this:

He falls asleep with words in his throat and fears in his heart.

He falls asleep with lead in his limbs and panic on his skin, both racing to fill the space they’ve been granted.

He falls asleep with nothing in his thoughts; his eyes shut against the blackness of the room.

And, asleep, he opens his eyes to the white sands beside the ocean and a bitter sun beating against the beach house he left behind.

He doesn’t know he’s dreaming, not at first. Not even when the sun sets quicker than it should and the stars sparkle with shades of gold and blue. He stands in the street before this house— this home, this dreamscape— and watches as the stars kiss the horizon with edges too sharp to be true. Galaxies swirl across the sky and meteors shatter against the atmosphere.

Still, he does not say he’s dreaming. Not even when the beach house is the only building in sight. Not even when the moon is missing from the sky.

He does what he would if he was awake and follows the tugging in his chest towards the house, an itch only resolved by turning from the stars and welcoming himself back to earth. The house is nothing but a cave as he grows nearer, a door lacking and all rooms dark, but all seems perfect in his mind. He’s awake, he’s sure, as he smiles at the one light glimmering through the back door. The sensation in his chest grows stronger— less a tug and more a pain— and he does the one thing promising to relieve it; he walks forward.

The closer he grows, the louder the sounds of the water outside become, splashing and crashing and kissing the sand with a violence that sends chills down his spine. Still, the ache in his chest eases and the air grows cooler around him. This house doesn’t have steps or a porch to bother with as he reaches the backyard; the inside fades into nature and wooden floors disappear against careful grains of sand.

And, in the distance, Pete sees the ocean and a pathway of rocks he’s come to love.

The water stills as breath catches in his throat, as surely as if he were plunged within those ice-blue sheets brushing against the rocks. But, here, he can breathe and he does not fear the feeling of water in his lungs. He runs, barefoot across the night’s cool sand, and welcomes the threat— no, the  _promise_ — of such a poetic moment. The house behind him becomes nothing and he swears the water in his vision, though untouched and still so far, feels more like home than this building ever did.

Sand becomes rocks, wet and slick but too familiar to ignore, and panting breaths become the most dramatic of gasps when he reaches the end, at last.

Words and phrases fill his mind and they don’t make sense, not yet. Not until the stars are brighter than the sun could ever be, though darkness still coats their sky. Not until the water looks like a friend and the city is a distant memory.

Not until a familiar head of red-gold hair and blue-gold eyes appear from the murky water around them.

When he smiles— when Patrick smiles— Pete knows he can’t be dreaming. He’s asleep but he knows he can’t be dreaming.

“You’re here,” Pete breathes, falling to his knees in a way that would hurt if he was awake. Patrick swims closer— cautious or shy, Pete can’t tell— until his hands are on the rocks and he’s inches from Pete. “You’re… It’s you.”

“And what of you?” Patrick’s voice is a symphony once more, each syllable carrying a thousand memories Pete hates himself for forgetting. Is he even the same person he was while awake in the prison of a city? Experiences shape a person and who is Pete now if he’s forgotten even this? “I did not realize the journey to your home would take quite so long.”

“No, no, Patrick, it—” It’s lovely to say his name once more, to know it belongs to more than just a character “ —it was my fault, I’m so sorry. I forgot the sand and then I couldn’t sleep and I should have been here, I should have been checking on you. God, are you okay? Has anything happened there, and—”

“Pete.” Gently, Patrick pushes himself up off the rocks and presses a soft kiss to the corner of Pete’s mouth, stilling the air and Pete’s words. It’s not enough to make up for the weeks they’ve missed, the nights they should have had, but Patrick’s voice is rough as he speaks and each movement he makes is like a flinch. He twitches back as if thinking of moving away but stays where he is, words pressed like caresses into Pete’s skin. “I am… There have been close calls but I am fine. The stars have done their best to keep me safe. I told you they would.”

“You said you broke their rule by singing.” Pete pulls away, a hand wrapped around Patrick’s arm and another brushing the back of his neck. Closer, he can see the dark circles beneath those vibrant eyes and he can feel the trembling muscles beneath his touch. Patrick smiles wanly but looks away from Pete’s searching gaze, lowering himself partially into the water but keeping within Pete’s reach.

“Before, the stars protected me by shielding what I was as long as I cooperated with that plan. It was never a rule, just a choice I had to make. And…” Patrick trails off, biting his lip with those sharp teeth Pete had nearly forgotten even now. His words linger in the air, resting with the stars, and he shakes his head to begin again. “But that does not mean they left me without a backup plan. I can be a siren now, Pete.” He smiles, childlike though the light doesn’t entirely reach his eyes. “I have had the chance to practice and I am not the best but it has been enough to keep the monsters from me.”

Pete struggles to keep up with Patrick’s fast-paced words, nodding along with a stupid smile on his face. “Really?”

“Really!” Patrick laughs to himself, hesitant once more. “Do you want to see?”

Pete doesn’t quite understand the question— he still doesn’t entirely understand how Patrick can be fine after all this time— but he nods once more, still smiling like he’s accepted the happy ending already. “I— Yeah, of course.”

It doesn’t sound believable even to his own ears and he panics when Patrick pushes from the rocks with a quick flick of his tail, the tease of green lifting from the water for a moment. It’s a brighter shade than it was when Pete was awake and specks of gold line the scales.

Somehow, though he knows he’s sleeping, the details he’d missed before seem more real than they ever have.

“Watch,” Patrick mutters, drawing Pete’s eye back up to his face. He’s not as serene as he might have once appeared, strict lines crossing the skin beside his lips, but there’s a light in his eyes Pete hadn’t known he’d been missing. The gold in Patrick’s gaze grows, overpowering the blues with an ease that should be terrifying to witness. The last time this happened, Pete had monsters in his mind and misplaced anger in his heart. He’d been afraid and scrambling away from the creature he was certain would kill him.

Now, the sight brings his heartbeat into a quicker pace, a more intense rate, and his heart itself pounds against his chest with the desire to be closer to Patrick— it burns with the need to feel, to touch, to know that Patrick is here.

As if sensing his thoughts, as if more than their dreams have been shared, Patrick smiles in that soft and subtle manner of his. “Pete, do you believe in magic?”

Does he believe in magic? Does he believe in something he’s only witnessed in blue-gold eyes and darkened seas?

The answer is honest; the answer is simple.

“I believe in you.”

The answer is more than enough and, yet, Pete’s not quite sure it’s worth the blinding smile on Patrick’s face.

Without a word, without a whisper, the waves begin to take a different shape above Patrick’s hands, held flat beneath the surface. His eyes burn the same golden shade that’s been littered in Pete’s thoughts without name or reason. They stare into nothing but Pete still feels their fire, a scorching glare that touches him with the same tenderness of the last moments they shared.

Patrick’s face pinches in what could be pain, what might be concentration. The gold takes over the blue entirely and Pete’s so enraptured in the shade— the way it seems to glow, the way it calls to him the way he’d been taught a siren would— that he nearly misses the way the water between him and Patrick begins to lift.

Nearly, but not quite.

It’s impossible to ignore the sudden bubbling of the waves, the jarring shift in the tide, as Patrick’s eyes burn brighter than before. The water lifts— impossibly so— and turns in the air, a spiral of ocean which shouldn’t exist.

It moves cautiously at first, testing the air with gentle movements and soft drops of water down the side. Slowly, the water grows more certain of itself, becoming one uniform shape. The tip of the spiral sharpens and bends before Pete’s eyes, an action as steady as his breaths. It twists and it turns, dancing in the most violent manner before it stops.

All is still but for the slightest tremor of the water trapped in Patrick’s spell. Water which floats above the waves with nothing but Patrick’s will calling it to do so. Water forced into the shape of a crescent moon, the deepest of blues against the stars and sky behind it.

Perhaps this is a dream, after all, for Pete can find no reason for what he sees.

Patrick shudders slightly when Pete looks back over, his eyes dimmed only by the fluttering of his lashes and the tired way in which he blinks.

“You’re doing that,” Pete breathes, edging closer towards the image. “You’re… Holy shit, Patrick, you’re doing that.”

His eyes are back on the moon but the smile in Patrick’s voice speaks for itself. “I asked if you believe in magic.”

“And I said that I believe in you.” Pete's hand lifts of its own accord, hovering in the air as if wishing to mimic the water before him. He reaches out, stilled only by the golden light of Patrick’s eyes. “Can I feel?”

“Carefully.” The word is barely free from Patrick’s lips before Pete’s fingers are on the water, brushing the strange texture of an ocean that’s been lifted from its home. It trembles beneath his fingers, living and breathing as he does, and something sparks against his palm when he presses his hand flat against it. All noise fades to silence as this moon glows against his skin. It’s impossible and it’s wonderful and Pete can find no proper words to describe the sudden rush of joy he feels at its existence. “Why a moon? Is that all you can make?”

Patrick laughs and the false moon drops, a waterfall against Pete’s hand as it rains down into the sea drop by drop. The sense of loss is immediate but Pete pushes it to the side, looking back at Patrick as he swims closer once again.

“I made a moon because there is none to be seen here. It brings nothing but pain to me and my kind but, I thought, perhaps you would enjoy it,” he says. “I can do more if I concentrate. I have made walls beneath the water to keep the monsters out. Blades, too, have proven useful.” He looks down, away from Pete and towards the rocks. “Though, I do not like making the weapons.”

It fits, Pete thinks, in that perfectly Patrick way that he wouldn’t appreciate the more violent defenses he can form. A chiding tone rests in the back of his throat but he buries it away for another time, another stolen moment like this where he can pretend he has a forever to say whatever he wishes.

“I’m glad,” he says, bringing his hands to Patrick’s cheeks once he’s close enough. “So they haven’t hurt you?”

When Patrick hesitates, the world seems to stop around them.

“Not been as bad as you might have feared.” Pete hates the soft lilt of Patrick’s voice, the way he twists away from his grasp to keep his eyes from Pete’s sight.

Pete grits his teeth, urging the universe to prove his worries wrong for once. “That’s not a no.”

“And it is not a yes.” Patrick looks at Pete with hard eyes, the gold lighting for a handful of seconds before fading into something sad, something subtle. His hand, cool and wet, wraps lightly around Pete’s wrist and tugs. Another electric shock shoots across Pete’s skin, small flashes of lightning in every place Patrick touches. Pete has no choice, he has no will, but to do as Patrick says. Not because he’s being forced but because the thought of losing this touch so soon is a thought he would rather live without. Slowly, Patrick pulls Pete’s hand towards his jaw, adjusting until Pete’s cupping the side of his face. He flinches as Pete places more pressure and it’s only when Patrick twists his head to the side that Pete feels it.

A cut extends from behind Patrick’s right ear, curving up at the last second to create a crescent shape ending near the bottom of his cheek. It’s a shallow wound and barely visible but Patrick’s grunt of pain as Pete strokes his thumb across it is more than enough to have him seeing red.

“You said you were fine.” His voice is as dark as the waves and the sky, as dangerous as the predators who dared to leave such an awful mark on the creature before him.

Patrick doesn’t shy away from the tone, though, turning his head from Pete’s grip and taking his hand in one fluid movement. “And I am. Without their blade, they have had to resort to older weapons. Spears and knives, yes, but none that I fear as badly as the Sunset. You… You hid it, right?”

Pete’s mouth dries. Glowing eyes and the memory of a waking nightmare fills his mind, as muddied as it was the night those demons first proved their existence. Before they were whispers, before they were understood, before they were dangers in ways Pete hadn’t known to expect.

These thoughts fade when Patrick blinks up at him. His lips repeat the question but Pete can’t hear, already answering in a hushed, “yes.”

Patrick relaxes, tense shoulders going lax and his lips slipping into a smile Pete wishes would never leave.

“Good,” Patrick says. “I have sensed it near the beach but never with the monsters. So long as it is lost to them, I will be safer than I had planned.”

It’s a phrase which should bring nothing but peace. Patrick’s safe and he is well, albeit cut up and more exhausted since the last time Pete saw him.

But it’s the last part that has Pete’s breath hitching in his throat; the implications that Patrick was so willing to throw himself to death has his heart hammering like a monster of its own aching to break free.

“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” he says, the words racing each other like school children. They run into each in their haste but Pete can’t care, leaning towards Patrick with a desperate grin. “We’re safe here, right? Let’s not talk about… about what’s out there.” Already, Pete’s terrified for Patrick’s safety— even now, in the soothing confines of a dream. He finds his palms sweating and his limbs shaking as he wonders where Patrick is, out there in the real world. Is he hidden in a cave, curled up behind one of those walls he said he made? Is he at the bottom of the sea or near the beach? Is he warm and comfortable and calm? Is he safe? Is he happy?

“Alright,” Patrick says, smiling. It’s too like his playful facade from their earlier meetings to truly put Pete’s mind at ease. “My turn to ask a question, then. Tell me, who is the man you have left the beach and house to?”

“The man?” Pete furrows his eyebrows together, wondering if the house had been sold without his knowledge, after all. The thought causes his heart to flip, his mind to race. Another danger, another fear, another problem he won’t be able to fix once he’s awake and all these thoughts are gone.

“Yes,” Patrick says, pressing even closer to the rocks. “He does not live there, I think, but he visits often. All brown hair and brown eyes, peering into the water like he knows but cannot see. He seems good… familiar… Do you know him?”

Pete lets out a weighted sigh when he recognizes Patrick’s description.

“Brendon,” he says. “That’s… It’s Brendon. I asked him to watch the house while I’m gone. His family’s… Well, nevermind about that, but he seemed trustworthy. I hoped that he’d be able to protect you if something happened.” It sounds foolish now that he says it but Patrick, at least, is nodding.

“Well, he throws rocks in the water a lot but it does scare the monsters away so…” He trails off, giggling to himself. “I will never understand you humans, though I wish I did.”

“No you don't,” Pete says, using his free hand to splash Patrick. “We all suck up here. We’re… Humans can be cruel, Patrick, you know that. It’s better if you stay as you are. The ocean may not be the safest right now but it is the best place for someone as special as you.”

Patrick’s silent, considering, his eyes dropping down once more.

“But it is safe in here, in our dream.” His hands find Pete’s shirt, tugging lightly at the fabric as a child would. “They are not… The monsters cannot reach us here and their moon is not in my sky. You can… Will you… Will you swim with me again?”

Before Pete’s fully smiling, before the question makes sense in his mind, he already knows his answer.

“Will you sing for me again?” Patrick’s hand falls as Pete begins to pull his shirt off, tossing it to the side without caring for where it lands. This is a dream, after all, and Pete would rather not distract himself with silly details such as that. “Well, will you?”

He’s teasing, preparing for the familiar chill of the water, but Patrick’s voice is awed and sincere when he speaks— a promise wrapped in every confession they couldn’t share before. “Of course.”

Of course. A simple phrase and yet it sends every chill down Pete’s spine.

“Alright,” he breathes, afraid his voice may shatter in the air carefully constructed around them. Hopes and fears built only by the time they spent apart replace the oxygen molecules and wind, rising and falling like the wave walls Patrick must be surrounded with when he's awake and alone; they break and collapse like the cages Pete places his emotions in when he’s the same.

The same way his memories returned as he neared the beach, his experience in the ocean, too, makes itself known again. He recalls the fear he felt as he slipped beneath the surface, the icy kiss of water against his skin before Patrick’s hands took its place. The sudden darkness and silence in the few seconds his head was beneath the gentle waves, the utter soundlessness that spoke against every terrified beat of his heart.

He remembers Patrick and he remembers that the fear lasted for mere seconds. Still, he hesitates to touch the water again.

It’s when Patrick’s hand finds his wrist that he sits down, letting his legs hang over the side. The water’s warmer than he remembers, warm enough that he’s unsure whether he’s touching it at all. The place where ocean becomes air tickles his knees and he laughs at the sensation. Is this how Patrick feels, half in and half out whenever they meet?

“Alright,” Pete says again. He finds Patrick’s eyes and, this time, he focuses only on the comfort he sees in the blue. “Alright.”

With a smile bright enough to fill the sky as a moon of its own, Patrick pulls back and tugs.

The rocks and surface vanish; everything is replaced with warmth.

Perhaps it’s really the water’s temperature, the comfortable weight of a gentle heat against his skin, or maybe it’s because this is a dream and he’s willed the ice away.

Maybe it’s because Patrick’s arms don’t hesitate to wrap around him, the way they did the first time. Maybe it’s because Pete’s returning the action without a thought of his own.

He’s beneath the surface longer than he expected, eyes shut tightly as water plays with his hair and scales brush across his legs with a trepidation Pete doesn’t need to look to see. Patrick’s hands rub gently across his back, slow and steady and sure, and, finally, water bubbles around them as Patrick flicks his tail to lift them out from beneath the waves.

Breath greets Pete like a lover’s kiss, desperately and with no room for thoughts of goodbye. It’s pained and it’s aching but it’s perfect and, all at once, it’s replaced by the familiar press of Patrick’s lips against his.

Patrick urges forward, water shifting around them until Pete’s back pushes against the rocks he’d been seated on. The kiss is everything Pete’s breath was and more; desperation becomes passion and pain is the promise that this touch alone will heal every bit of hurt left remaining. Pete parts his lips, legs kicking limply to keep himself up though he’s certain Patrick’s hands are really the reason he’s stayed above this long. Saltwater invades his mouth in minuscule drops, coating his lips in Patrick’s world with nothing more than Patrick’s tongue to carry it.

“You said you were going to sing,” Pete laughs when Patrick pulls away, smiling. “What happened to that?”

“Are you complaining?” The smile carries over into Patrick’s voice, as safe as the waters around them. “I have waited weeks to see you again, Pete. Do you expect me to have the same patience when you are here?”

“Of course not,” Pete says, pressing a peck to Patrick’s lips— a gesture which still sends riptides through his stomach. They don’t speak of how Patrick’s the only one who’s been aware of the waiting game, of how these moments will be missing from Pete’s mind until he sleeps again. To think of Patrick waiting, pining, without knowledge of when he will see Pete… It’s too much for a happy moment like this. “I’ve missed you. I… I may not have known it but I have. I’ve missed you so much.”

Patrick’s smile wavers but he hides it easily, resting his head on Pete’s shoulder. Hair tickles Pete’s neck and cheek but he presses into it anyway, absorbing every piece of contact he can get.

Silence is alright but it still wracks Pete’s nerves when he wonders how long it can last. How long until one of them is forced awake? The stars merely spin in this sky, never rising or falling, and the water’s gentle pulls are nothing more than a pattern. Still, time must be passing in some way and Pete holds Patrick tighter at the thought.

“Do you wish for me to sing now?” Patrick asks, his voice as hushed as it’s ever been. Pete swallows and licks his lips, dragging the taste of ocean into his suddenly dry mouth.

“I want you to tell me why you did,” he says, mimicking Patrick’s whisper without meaning to. “You and the stars had a deal and you broke it. Why? Why would you risk yourself like that?”

Another silence. Pete presses closer to Patrick as if this can drag the answer from him.

Slowly, though, Patrick moves back and presses the edge of one sharpened nail gently into Pete’s chest.

“Your sun,” he whispers. “You and your charm… It made me feel protected. Powerful. The stars gave me a sign that you were safe and, somehow, being around you made me feel brave. I knew the risk but I stopped caring when you were here. Before I knew I cared for you I knew you made me brave. I felt I could stop any and every danger so long as you were at my side. And, if I was unable to? I felt as if you could stop it for me. And you have, Pete. You have protected me as no one has and I will never regret the choice I made that night because it brought us closer together. And, you know? I think the stars knew we were meant to be as close as we are now.”

Words dry up in Pete’s mouth, something only Patrick can ever achieve. Even his thoughts are pure emotion and nothing more than images— monsters in the dark and wounds on Patrick’s skin.

When he speaks, Pete’s words sound like they’re drowning. “I haven’t been doing a very good job.”

“You have done more than you think,” Patrick says. Where Pete’s words are sinking into the ocean, Patrick’s are light and they float around Pete’s head like hands keeping him from following his own voice into the deep. “I would have lost my will to fight had I not met you. I would have given myself over or… or worse so do not… do not tell me you have done nothing.” These words soar and fly— they do everything Pete and Patrick can’t.

A thousand things are left to say and a thousand things remain unsaid. Though the sky is as dark as it was when Pete first opened his eyes here and though the stars are more vivid than they’ve ever been, Pete knows he is close to waking. He’s close to another goodbye and that leaves just one more question to ask.

“Will you sing for me now? Until I’m no longer asleep?”

Pete’s not sure but he swears he feels Patrick’s lips smile against his skin, the same way he knows the new drops of water down his shoulder are from Patrick’s eyes.

“Of course,” Patrick says again, as sincere as he had been before. “Of course, Pete.”

And, finally, he sings. His voice hesitates before growing in volume, a language Pete can only pretend to understand filling the air in melodies humans could never create. It’s a different song from before, a song Patrick sings with a voice like magic. Notes play the part of the moon and harmonies fill the air in the shape of every fantastical star. Gold twists into every syllable he sings, shining through the echoing sadness and blazing with the promise that Pete will hear him sing again.

Patrick sways against him and it’s almost like they’re dancing as he pulls Pete away from the rocks, Pete holding tighter than he ever has. Exhaustion clings to him and he could almost laugh at how this signifies he’s meant to wake. Always tired, it seems. Always chasing after a feeling of rest and peace— a feeling he can’t have for long.

As the stars slow to a stop, Patrick’s song nears its end. He drags the notes out, running his hands across Pete’s back and singing against him so that Pete feels every shift of his lips, every switch in how his mouth sings his haunting words.

Pete curls against him and hums without thinking, adding to Patrick’s song in an off-key tune. If he weren’t so tired, he’d apologize for butchering the melody.

Patrick only laughs, rubs his arms, and lets go with one more trembling kiss against Pete’s cheek.

It burns like the sight of a rising sun. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I am so so sorry for being late! I hope this made up for it <3


	19. Fairytale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fabricated story, especially one intended to deceive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe this, my friends, is what they call a mistake.
> 
> All the love and more to the_chaotic_panda for being the best beta reader (and for putting up with the mess that came with this chapter lol)
> 
> Enjoy!

 

_fairytale_

_noun_

_a fabricated story, especially one intended to deceive  
_

Pete doesn’t dream in the same ways he used to, details becoming questions with every passing night. He no longer dreams of words left unwritten or scenes left unsaid. He used to dream the way he wrote, without limit and with too much emotion buried in the seams. Now, though, all he finds each morning is a terrible aching loss in his chest, as if his heart’s been left to beat in the dreams he can’t recall. Now, he’s left with nothing but the desperate desire to see past the veil of darkness cascading across his nightmares and dreamscapes like the depressing expanse of a starless night sky.

He’s left with nothing. Nothing but a new collection of words to transcribe each time he opens his eyes. While his dreams fade away with the touch of the sun, flying into oblivion like a kite into an unseen portion of sky, his words are more plentiful than he ever remembers them being.

They come with no warning or inspiration, no reason for the sudden flood of thoughts invading his mind. His sentences belong to no story and his phrases are only his to know.

_I dream of night and day at once. I dream of baby blue and the shade of the sun dancing along a sky painted with the ocean’s colors. I dream of broken whispers and lips still stinging when I open my eyes. I dream of things I can’t recall and I dream of emotions they haven’t found a name for yet._

_I dream of nothing and everything at once. Of universes as they expand and collapse in time with the incomparable twitching of my lungs. I dream of drowning and flying and standing with my feet planted firmly in a darkness set to blind me._

He spends hours each morning— or afternoon or night, depending on when he wakes— scribbling across blank pages until his eyes are sore from the messy scrawls. He only pauses to help his mom or Hillary but, even then, his mind is always on the words left to write.

Just one more sentence, he thinks as he writes five more. Just one more word and then he’s done.

As he fills enough pages to create yet another novel— an entire notebook filled in a short handful of days— he reminds himself how foolish it is to believe he’s ever had the ability to stop himself from doing anything.

_I write about dreams I don’t believe in. I’m tied to the battle of wits and the desire to seem clever. Would they all think that of me if they saw the things I’ve written now? Or would this finally kick that last rotten belief out from their aching mouths?_

_Their praise and applause and love are armor I can’t wear anymore. And the shining piece of my mind they all grasp for with their rusting lips and shattering words is lost in the sand I keep beside my bed. Buried like a treasure I forgot I had._

It’s even more foolish to pretend these words mean anything— even to himself. He doesn’t know where they come from or why. He only feels that something’s been lost and he can only pretend there’s a way to retrieve it.

And he’s a writer; there’s only one thing he’s good at.

_I’m a writer. I’ll always try to find meaning in meaningless things and these words are the most unimportant things I’ve written yet._

While he writes these silly things, his book’s publishing schedule makes its way onto his mom’s calendar, taped to the fridge because her magnets have all lost their charm. She tells him there’s a month or so left until the first copies hit the stores. She asks him if he has any celebrations planned.

“I don’t remember,” Pete answers honestly. “I… I can’t remember.”

She smiles and offers to call around to ask— perhaps it’s the bruises beneath his eyes or the ink staining the side of his hand that draws out her motherly instincts— but Pete doesn’t think she understands.

He doesn’t remember. He can’t remember and the knowledge that there’s something left behind in his thoughts— in his dreams, in his reality— fills him with a sour sensation. He falls through time and the days escape him like a nightmare.

He doesn’t test the dreams and realities with a pinch the way he normally would. He doesn’t want to know if he can truly exist with such a horrid feeling inside him.

_Hillary’s doing better with each day and I’ve become a cave painting in my mom’s home. I am the proof that things don’t always get better— they merely fade away. Ruins becoming dust and the burned books of civilizations past._

_And yet_

And yet

_There’s something more in these words and in my mind and even in myself. Someone buried more than just my memories and dreams— they locked away a chest of gold and I’m determined to find out why._

_I’m convinced I must find out how._

_The city sleeps in shades of silver and bronze, the smog of indifference thick against the tainted clouds painting the sky. They breathe the pollution of apathy with masks meant to look like a smile. They’re too much and they’re too close and I could die just looking at the bleakness of it all._

_Because there’s gold in my mind and the city can never match it. There’s something precious I just need to remember and I will write a million words until I know what it is._

_I will dream a thousand forgotten dreams until I see more than just the X marking this spot. I’ll dig and I’ll tear and I’ll scream and I’ll find it._

Pete pauses, pen lifted in the air with a crazed look in his eyes before he presses against the page once more.

_I’ll find you_

~

The night after Pete’s longest writing session— a full day, taking breaks only when his mom or sister remind him of how long he’d been working— Pete opens his eyes to his and Patrick’s secret world, breath already captured in his chest. Memories fill his mind with the simplicity of turning on a light— the darkness dissolves and he feels whole once more.

It’s strange, though, as he walks through the house and towards the beach, on the rocks and to the place where he’s always met Patrick. He doesn’t consider to be the Pete who fell asleep and, he knows, when he wakes he won’t feel like the Pete he is now.

Never the same person when he wakes up as when he falls asleep— a thought he shakes his head at and hopes to remember enough to write when he wakes.

These thoughts, though, are shoved to the side as he kneels on the rocks and watches the water with a curious gaze. It ripples gently beneath the stars and sky, the dark temptation of it twisting his gut with each passing moment of loneliness. He would shut his eyes against the sight if he weren’t afraid doing so would only lead him to opening them again in his bed.

When Patrick appears with a smile, Pete’s mind eases for now. He runs a hand through Patrick’s hair and another across his cheek once he’s close enough, reassuring himself that he’s here and he’s alright. As always, he checks to see if there’s anything new to be concerned about— last time it was the bruise on Patrick’s shoulder and the time before that it was the cut across his bottom lip. Now, there are no marks or wounds to be seen— only tired eyes and shaking hands.

Patrick leans into Pete’s touch without a word, without a sound. His eyes slip shut as he props himself up against the rocks, head resting on his arms. Pete lets the silence grow, long enough to wonder whether or not he should ask what’s troubling Patrick now. He runs his fingers down the back of Patrick’s neck, massaging a tense knot caught in the muscles. Patrick sighs, gills flickering, and Pete smiles fondly. Patrick’s comfort with the surface has increased since the first few nights they met, his breaths as even as a human’s when he sighs once more.

At last, Pete pulls his hands away and taps gently on Patrick’s cheek. Patrick’s eyes open with a concerning slowness, finding Pete’s after a bit of searching.

“Tired?” Pete’s smile struggles to keep steady and Patrick returns the action.

“Only a little,” he says and every bit of it sounds like a lie. “I am learning my powers as quickly as I can but there is no way to guess when the monsters will attack. It is exhausting to use a defense in the same hour it was learned.”

As Patrick speaks, the stars dim.

Pete knows better than to ask Patrick what message they’re sending now, what warning or prophecy is being shared. It’s not that Patrick won’t tell him; Pete just never likes the answer. Besides, he’d rather pretend there’s no warning to be heard than be faced with the horrors of it so suddenly. This is a time for dreams, after all, and nightmares have no place here. 

Time, though, is running out until the monsters do something horrible and staring ignorantly into the darkness has never done Pete much good for long.

“Can we not speak of this, now?” Patrick asks, filling the air with the exact words Pete had been trying to find. Pete doesn’t nod yet, eyes still on the stars as they play their tricks and hint at their games. If they weren’t the last protectors Patrick had, he imagines he’d hate them.

“You’d tell me if you were really in danger, right?” Pete asks, his tone both unfamiliar and recognizable all at once. “I don’t… I don’t need to know every detail but you’d give me some warning so I could come to stop it, right? You have to know I’d try to stop whatever danger you’re in.”

“Oh, Pete,” Patrick says, tail flicking out behind him to disturb both the water and the gentle murmur of their voices. “I do not think I would tell you anything of the sort. What could you possibly do other than worry if you knew the truth?”

Patrick’s eyes follow Pete’s towards the stars, their indifferent shine suddenly appearing gray in his eyes and turning his tail a sickly shade. He presses his lips together tightly as if regretting what he’d said, as if he can imagine he hadn’t said it at all.

Pete tries to find something to say— a demand, a comfort, a promise— but all his pretty words have been left on papers left for others to read and he has nothing to give Patrick but the press of his lips against his cheek.

~

When Pete opens his eyes in the beach dreamscape a few weeks later, the night already feels halfway through. Memories don’t bother flooding in with the dramatics of before and the house is already behind him. He can’t recall if he had wandered through it the way he’s done for weeks— weeks which have taunted him with their growing despair, the foreboding feeling in the background of each whisper and kiss. He doesn’t remember falling asleep or even closing his eyes.

Walking towards the rocks, too, carries a different sensation than before. He doesn’t seem to be moving; rather, the sky and earth shift around him until he’s staring into murky depths and wondering how he got there. Waiting for Patrick, too, is like blinking only to find entire hours have passed.

Patrick peeks out from the water and, for once, there’s nothing tired or frightened about him. He smiles the way he used to and laughs when Pete returns with an astonished grin of his own. Patrick glows beneath the stars or, perhaps, the stars are merely reflecting the light he’s giving off. Pete’s certain this is the more likely scenario for, when Patrick pulls him into a kiss, his entire being fills with an electrifying warmth.

This is how it should have been the past few weeks. This is how it should have always been.

“You must be growing tired of this place by now,” Patrick says once they’ve pulled apart. “And you have not told me how your city is. Your mother and sister and friends… Are they well?”

There’s something in his voice and words that coil in Pete’s guts with an ice against the warmth he'd been feeling before. He brushes it aside, saving the concern for another night. “Yeah, they’re all doing great. It’s been… It’s been nice to see them again.” He laughs, more to soothe Patrick’s curious gaze than anything else. “My phone’s been going off nonstop, I’ll tell you that. I forgot how many people I know.”

“It sounds like there are many,” Patrick says, a sigh lost in his voice. “I am in awe of your life and I know you refuse to understand but I only speak the truth. Surrounded by people who care for you, by family and friends. Is it horrible if I am jealous?”

“Of what? People who like to pretend they know me or—”

“Of the fact that they get to know you, at all,” Patrick interrupts, his smile twitching as he speaks. “Out there, that is, in your world. In the life you have lived for years before I ever had the chance to be part of it. Tell me, would you be unsettled if I said that I hope you are happy but… but also hope that your happiness includes a role for me to fill?”

Pete’s own smile drops slowly, fading into a frown the way day fades into night. “There will always be a place for you.”

Patrick’s silent, wasting time they’ve tricked the universe into handing them. His tail keeps track of the seconds, beating harshly against the water as he thinks. “I do truly hope you mean that. Promise me you mean it?”

“I promise,” Pete whispers without hesitation. Their spell takes hold as soon as the words taste the salted air around them, landing on Patrick like a kiss or drop of rain. The stars shine upon the vow, burning it into them with an accusatory glare. “When I get the chance to return, I’ll prove it to you.”

“I know you think you will.” The words sound like an apology Pete never asked for. Patrick glances up at him with reassuring eyes, though, and all Pete’s questions fall to the side. “I keep bringing up such depressing things. Forgive me.”

“It’s fine, I just… I wonder why you feel the need to say things like that, at all,” Pete says before he loses his nerve. “Just tell me that you’re alright and, if not, tell me how to fix it. But, please, don’t let me think there’s no hope left.”

“Oh, but there is more hope than you know,” Patrick says, pressing closer to the rocks as his eyes widen. “Just because you cannot see it yet does not mean it is gone entirely. I am… I am better, Pete, and I only mean to say that you do not need to save me this time. I have a plan and your friend, Brendon, is helping. I approached him with it a few nights ago and, after accepting what I am, he has been most helpful. I do not know if he agrees but… things will be alright. You will see.”

“Oh.” Again, Pete’s left speechless and he stares at Patrick as if he can pluck his pretty words from Patrick’s perfect eyes or steal them from his lips. “What is it?”

Patrick frowns and the upsetting feeling from before returns.

If Patrick can’t tell him, how bad is it? Is it dangerous? Is it embarrassing? Or are there monsters listening once again, trapping Patrick’s voice in his throat in the cruelest of ways?

Pete’s mind spins with terrible possibilities and his heart beats so harshly he fears he’ll wake from the intensity. And, if he wakes now, before Patrick confesses his scheme to him, he’ll never forgive himself.

When Patrick looks away, though, Pete knows it doesn’t matter if he wakes or not. Soft and soundless, Patrick promises not to give anything away.

Pete can’t force himself to beg for answers any more than he can force Patrick to speak. He used up his questions on plot details and storylines ages ago, interrogating a character and muse without sensitivity or remorse.

“You will understand when the time comes. That is my promise to you,” Patrick says, a grin attempting to ease the terror Pete feels at the words. “For now, let us think of better things.”

Pete looks away because he can’t take the sight of Patrick’s forced smile anymore. He searches for a new topic, a distraction, but his mind is as empty as the water Patrick’s swimming in. “What else can there be to talk about?”

“Talk? No, there is nothing more left to say.” Patrick’s voice drops to a low murmur and he runs his hands across Pete’s arms. “But there are so many things left to do. I do not know when… Well, no matter. Will you join me in the water, please? I want to feel that you are really here with me this time.”

“I— Okay. Of course.” He says no more because he already knows Patrick’s right— there’s nothing more to say. Most words would only become hollow beneath the stars’ lights and the rest would only drown before reaching the other’s ear. This is not a place for idle conversation or scripted questions. It’s only for them and they’ve never relied solely on their speech. How could they when Patrick’s stealing all Pete knows? How could they when the image of Patrick's smile is the picture worth every word?

Pete expects for Patrick to lead or pull him in like he’s done before. This time, though, Patrick backs away with a wondrous expression on his face. Eyes wide and mouth agape, half-smiling and half-afraid.

Yes. He’s always been worth every word.

Pete tosses himself into the water, expecting neither cold or warmth as he reaches only for Patrick.

Patrick finds him first, hands around his wrist and pulling him forward until their chests are pressed together— sea brushing against the sand.

Pete brushes through Patrick’s hair as he leans towards him, eyes caught on the drops of water still lingering on Patrick’s lips. He aches with the need to taste him, to feel the memories he’s soon to forget once these stars decide to fall. His lips press against Patrick’s for a desperate second, an impassioned moment, before Patrick’s lips are parting and his breath blows hots words into Pete’s mouth.

“Let me feel you.”

Words he’s only imagined Patrick saying before, words he’s not certain he understands. He pulls back and meets Patrick’s eyes, asking and pleading and trying to understand.

When Patrick places a kiss— shaped like a smile and tasting of every promise they’ve yet to break— back on Pete’s lips, walls and boundaries shatter until it’s nothing but dust between them.

Pete kicks away from the rocks and towards Patrick, arms wrapping around Patrick’s neck to pull him closer— to hold him tighter than ever before. Another kiss finds its way to Pete’s mouth and he parts his lips, tasting salt and sea and pure Patrick as their tongues brush against each other with the fire of every star burning above them. He savors the taste of the ocean as Patrick presses closer still, hands gripping Pete’s hips tight enough to bruise.

Tomorrow, will Pete see Patrick’s hands on him in the mirror? Will he recognize where the soreness came from or will the markings only appear as more words to be written onto pages no one will ever read?

As Patrick’s lips trail kisses along Pete’s jaw, it becomes harder to focus on such useless thoughts. He may not remember this in the morning; all that matters is that Patrick will.

With a grin, Pete pulls away and presses one of his hands to Patrick’s chest. Nails graze Patrick’s skin as Pete watches his reactions, Patrick’s dazed expression distorting into an open-mouthed gasp as Pete pinches one of his nipples with a smirk. He rolls his thumb over it slowly, his other hand falling to play with the other.

When Patrick’s grip on him tightens, Pete nearly laughs. He may not know much about siren anatomy but Patrick’s sensitivity as Pete teases him here is more than enough encouragement to keep going.

He ducks down before Patrick has the chance to stop him, Patrick’s grip loosening just enough for him to escape. Water sneaks into Pete’s mouth as he licks and bites at a nipple but it’s worth it when Patrick arches with a cry.

“Pete,” he whimpers, breaking his own no speaking rule. “No one has… I have not… Pete, just,  _please_.”

Pete represses a chuckle as he strokes down Patrick’s side, the skin smooth and tempting beneath his touch. He might not be able to carry proof of this in the morning but he can convince himself that Patrick will. He basks in the thought of Patrick remembering everywhere Pete’s hands and mouth have been, every sensation and feeling they can bring out.

Before he can act on this plan, though, before he can bite and scratch and claim Patrick as his, hands appear on his shoulder and pull him back up. He meets Patrick’s eyes for just a moment— long enough to see Patrick’s smirk but not long enough to understand it— and then Patrick’s shoving him back up against the rocks with sharp teeth teasing Pete's ear.

"I want to try something," he breathes. "I have never... But others have told me how you humans find pleasure and I... I want to do that for you. Let me try this for you. Teach me or show me or... Please, Pete, let me..." Patrick's words cut off as he bites Pete's ear, a sharp pain that brings both a moan and a cry from Pete's throat. Patrick watches him for a second more, smiling and staring and waiting, and then he disappears beneath the waves.

Pete doesn’t understand at first, lost, but then there are hands at the hem of his pants, pulling them and his boxer briefs down to be lost in the sea. Patrick, unseen but undoubtedly there, strokes along Pete’s cock until it’s hard and threatening to burst. Pete kicks out, struggling to stay afloat as Patrick jerks him without signs of stopping. Water fills his mouth once more and then—

And then Patrick’s hands are on his hips, pressing him up against the rocks.

And then Patrick’s mouth is around his cock and Pete sees the stars Patrick always seems to be talking about.

It starts shy, like the faint glimmer of dawn in the morning. Patrick starts at the head, lips covering his canine-like teeth as he sucks and laps at Pete's pre-come without seeming to know how he's teasing.

And Pete doesn't know what he's doing as he reaches beneath the water for Patrick, as he wraps Patrick's hair in his fingers and guides him further down his cock. Patrick's hands on his hips keep him from thrusting and it's both a blessing and curse as the tentative slide of Patrick's mouth around him continues its journey. Pete bites his lip and tosses his head back; he shuts his eyes and, if he had the will to move, he'd flip off the stars for spinning in such a mocking way.

At last, Patrick takes him down to the base, his tongue pressing cruel teases along the bottom side and Pete draws blood as he fights not to cry out. He kicks and tugs at Patrick's hair, his other hand scrambling uselessly against the rocks behind him. Patrick seems only to grow more confident at this display, bobbing his head in rhythm with the waves. He pulls and plays and sucks and Pete forgets about the stars in the sky-- the ones appearing behind his eyes are so much brighter. As Patrick swallows and hums— and Pete knows he’s humming, probably a haunting tune with words Pete will never decipher, Pete's voice giving out as vibrations travel from his cock and throughout his entire body— Patrick’s hand sneaks behind Pete, fingers dipping between his cheeks to press the pads lightly at his hole. Sharpened nails dance gently along the delicate skin surrounding it and Pete's certain he's drowning, certain he's dying-- there's no other explanation for how easily all his breath has escaped. 

Cursing, Pete bucks back against Patrick's hand before thrusting back into the perfect heat of his mouth, overwhelmed by the pressure building in deep in his guts. In his entire life, Pete’s never felt the way he does now, so completely out of control and out of touch with everything that isn’t Patrick. It amazes him how Patrick’s taken over everything— his mind, his body, his heart— with little more than a smile and secretive confession.

Sweat collects alongside the damp streaks of saltwater left along Pete's body and warmth curls pleasurably in Petehiss groin, building up with each passing second. He tugs harshly at Patrick's hair at the last second— to hold him still or to push him down further, he hasn’t decided. It doesn’t matter, though. Patrick pulls off of Pete and emerges from the water with the cockiest grin Pete’s ever seen him wear.

"Was that--"

Out of control. Out of his mind. Out of touch. Pete surges against Patrick for another kiss, pulling Patrick's hand between them to stroke Pete's cock. He's so close-- too close-- and he finds himself thrusting erratically into Patrick's fist one second and then rubbing carelessly against the smooth skin of Patrick's stomach. He knows he must look a mess but he can't care, kicking and moaning and begging as Patrick’s mouth finds his neck, as delicate scales brush against his bare skin in the most wonderful of ways.

The stars glow brighter than ever before and Pete shuts his eyes against them.

Let him forget about this world; let him forget reality. He gives into instinct, instead, rutting against Patrick and begging for the night to never end. Nails dig into Patrick’s back and tear angry red marks down his skin as Pete cries out at the pleasure racing through his veins and swelling in his cock. His hands wind up in Patrick’s hair and he tugs, finding Patrick’s throat with his lips and biting with the urge to make Patrick feel the same way, to force his control to fade away. Avoiding the gills, Pete connects his mouth to the base of Patrick’s throat, sucking hard enough to leave a bruise for days to come.

He prays for the bruise to form.

“Patrick,  _god_ , Patrick…” Pete writhes against him, the rocks disappearing from his touch as he kicks away from it. He just needs Patrick and the water; he just needs to forget about the sand and surface for tonight— forever.

Patrick keeps silent but Pete’s sure he feels the rumble of laughter as tiny bubbles take shape around them— from Patrick’s magic or their chaotic actions or a strange mix of both. The water heats up and comes alive but Pete feels none of it as Patrick twists his hand around Pete's cock.

When Pete’s climax hits, it’s with a scream meant to rival the roar of the ocean. Patrick strokes him through it, his hand never leaving until Pete’s gasping and shuddering against him. Pete curses and swears as he tries to catch his breath and Patrick, smiling and laughing to himself, shuts him up with a kiss.

“How on… What… How?” Pete stumbles over his words when Patrick’s lips are gone, his eyes slipping shut though the furious light of the stars still blinds him.

“Brendon may be a stranger but he is willing to answer the oddest questions about humans,” Patrick answers. “Now, sleep, Pete. You need to sleep.”

Pete wraps his arms around Patrick, already falling into the exhaustion that comes with waking. He holds onto Patrick as if doing so can keep the outside world away.

“Let me feel you,” he says as they float, the words making no sense as they escape his lips. “Let me feel you.”

“You will,” Patrick assures him. And, then, so softly Pete’s sure he didn’t truly hear it: “My plan can give you everything you want. I just hope you will understand.”

When Pete wakes, it’s with those last words stuck on repeat in his mind.

~

The nights that follow are nothing like the nights he’s had so far.

Opening his eyes and finding himself amidst memories and dreams isn’t always the same experience for Pete but it’s never happened like this.

This time, he opens his eyes to find the rocks already beneath his feet, his clothes and body soaked as if he’s been dragged free from the water. This time, the stars don’t light the sky and the moon fills his vision with its foreboding grin.

This time, he gasps for breath and chokes on darkness. This time, his memories are like glass, daring him to hold tighter with the promise of blood if he does; this time, they’re like fire and smoke and they burn, slipping away as his lungs fail him.

Now, all is silent but for the kiss of the waves against the shore. Memories fill his mind and these memories are like tears.

These memories are overwhelming and trembling and sinking into the ocean floor because, this time, Patrick isn’t here to brush the pain of them away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still Thursday here! It's late Thursday but it's still technically on time lol. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it gave me a lot of grief. Feedback is always appreciated! Thanks!


	20. Prose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written or spoken language in its ordinary form

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever to post, I'm sorry! I give up on trying to keep an exact schedule lol I just... I'll try for once a week, I guess? I'm so sorry about that
> 
> the_chaotic_panda was too busy being awesome to beta lol but we all love her anyway so here's a shout out --> Chaotic Panda Shout Out
> 
> Anyway, yeah, all mistakes are mine so come fight me about them. Or, if you'd like, you can leave a comment. I will love you so much if you comment lol.
> 
> Finally (longest author's note I've ever left omg lol) would you believe me if I said we're nearing the final act? So much to happen, yes, but all to end eventually...

 

_prose_

_noun_

_written or spoken language in its ordinary form_

Nothing is the same after that empty dream— the one clinging to Pete’s mind with vague details and visions. His thoughts linger on darkened waters and a howling silence, a gleaming moon with no stars to shine beside it. The atmosphere was drenched in shades of anxiety and Pete’s heart, too, was tinged with fear.

It’s a sensation that follows him even to the waking world.

Every night after is the same— standing and waiting and listening to the wail of a wind he cannot feel.

Suddenly, days pass without warning; nights are mere wisps of time. Pete writes and edits between dialogues passed across a too big dinner table— “it’s good to have you home; you never visit enough; take care of yourself, as well” — and carefully weighted conversations on the phone.

“The book’s out soon and the people are sure to love it. Your new character is going to be a fan fave.”

The news of the impending release leaves Pete off level, editing the chapters sent back to him with tired eyes plagued by bad dreams. His editor and agent are pleased with the quick work he’s doing— as well as the amount— but he’s past caring for their praise; he’s certain he never cared to begin with.

Outside his window at night, amidst cloudy skies and past the binding tug of the city, planets swing to the beat of a silent song and he no longer knows if he sleeps or dreams. The afternoon sun warms the ink on his notebook pages, igniting each letter with a meaning he ignores. Writing is all he seems to know but, even now, the love he once had for it is gone. Only a nagging feeling remains, a soft pull at the back of his head as if there are stories waiting for another way to escape. To dream of them? To speak of them? To offer life to the tales within his mind?

All he can do is force them into a fantastical story of monsters and sirens.

The clouds he’s fought for too long fill his memory, numbing all but the confusion and haze that comes with each time he looks at the bottle of sand on his desk. Somehow, the golden gleam of the miniature beach has faded and it’s only on the rare occasion that the specks and grains of sand are bright enough to erase the fog he seems to live in.

It’s only when this fog has lifted— not enough to be gone but just enough to see through— that he writes without fear of losing his wits. His pen becomes a handcuff connecting him to blank sheets of paper against his will. He lets his mom read these words only because he’s not sure if he should be worried about what he sees on the page when he's done.

_He shakes like a leaf. He’s clicking like an old answering machine. He howls and screams at the moon. He breathes wet but now the air’s gone dry._

His mom asks who “he” is and Pete fails to find an answer. He's silent, a name and face slipping from his mind-- a sun from the horizon. His mom merely frowns; too gently, she rests a hand on his cheek.

“Maybe you should take a break from this writing stuff,” she says. “Hillary’s doing better now so let’s take care of you.”

Pete shrugs off her concern. “I think I’m just tired. I write the weirdest things when I can’t sleep, you know that.”

His mom still doesn’t seem to believe him but she nods anyway, a soft shift of her head as she considers his words. “It’s too bright, isn’t it? I’ll see if I can pick up some of those blackout curtains you like so much. You never could sleep well when the stars are lighting up your room.”

Pete smiles. He thanks her for the kind thought but rejects it anyway.

That night, he leaves his curtains wide open. It’s not the stars that bother him, though their light does leave an itching across his skin. It's the city and cars and moon, though, that chase away the sense of comfort the nighttime often brings.

Stuck on the edges of sleep and dreams, he imagines he hears the crashing of waves. The ominous sound scare him awake.

Drunk on fear and high on panic for reasons he can’t yet grasp— reasons with no face but with shimmering tails and a magical grin, like the creature he described in a book he neither hates nor loves— he reaches for a pen and notebook, begging his hands not to shake so much as he chases his own thoughts away. When his hands are steady once more, he does the only thing he knows to do.

_Did the sea scare you off the way it should have terrified me? Did the waves come too close to the beach or did they pull too far back? Did the night grow too dark? Did the moon glow too brightly?_

_Did you miss me the way you said you would? And do you wish I miss you, too?_

He writes words not even he can understand.

~

Weeks later, the book is finished.

Done.

Complete.

Out of his hands and, subsequently, out of his life-- all in a matter of weeks. Weeks since that nightmare first decided to haunt his mind. Weeks since his writing became more nonsensical than he could have ever planned.

For a while, Pete hears nothing on the novel and isn’t entirely convinced the agency plans on publishing it— a feeling that also appeared each time his editor called to ask why his edited pieces made less sense than what he originally had— but, eventually, he's called into the offices. He attends a few meetings to decide exact launch dates and to discuss cover art but everything blends together too closely for him to pick apart what’s important or not. All he knows is that another book is being released into the world— another piece of him to be consumed and dissected without a thought.

The more he speaks about the book, though, the more he realizes just how much he wants to keep it as  _his_. Agents and publishers and other people in fancy suits say the names all wrong and mispronounce confessions of love. They speak over him in order to discuss possible movie deals and whether a gay love story between a fish and a human would do well in certain countries. The room starts rumbling excitedly at the prospect of the book being banned but the thought only makes Pete's stomach turn.

He doesn't want his characters' stories to be hidden. He doesn't write so his words can be deemed wrong or moral-- he writes so the world can pause and ponder their definitions of the words. Wrong. Moral. What does it matter if the fish-- merman, siren-- in his story falls in love with a man? Why focus on that over the trauma Pete's written about? Why ignore the pain and devastation?

Who's wrong, now, he wonders?

Still, he smiles weakly when they finally ask him to reveal the title he chose.

“Infinity on High,” he says. “Like Van Gogh? Be clearly aware the stars and infinity on high… I mean, the stars are a big theme so… so it made sense. And I like the word infinity. I like the thought of something without a real beginning or end. It reminds me of… of the main character. Of Patrick.”

Perhaps it’s the lack of sleep or perhaps he’s losing his mind but, for some reason, he can’t seem to say his character’s name without choking on it first. Thankfully, no one notices and  _Infinity on High_  is written down as the name, a polite applause filling the room.

If only Pete could write of high-stakes drama and romance, if only he could offer a smile for the back cover of the book, if only he knew where his dismal ideas came from, then maybe he could enjoy the event as much as the rest of them are.

He leaves, losing his smile like it's an uncomfortable piece of clothing-- a formality, a necessity. He doesn't ask for anyone to update him on the book and he doesn't know if he cares to hear any, anyway.

Within a week or so, though, he receives the call that it’s ready for publication and his heart turns inside out. Fear? Anticipation? He still has no name for the strange feelings in his chest.

As usual, a publisher contacts him with details of the book launch they plan on throwing— a small party to be held at a bookstore deeper in the city. The guest list includes the usual bloggers, reviewers and others from the publishing press, along with a handful of local fans that have been pinpointed as “loyal.” A few extra invites find their way to Pete's email and his publisher enthusiastically encourages Pete to bring as many friends and family members as possible.

Pete only finds the energy to bring it up to his mom and sister at dinner a few nights later. As expected, he’s greeted with excited congratulations and the promise to spread the news down the family grapevine. Pete smiles at their interest but knows no one else will have the time or desire to attend. He’s written enough books and had enough parties; at some point, people just stop showing up.

“So what can we expect at the celebration?” Hillary asks, smiling and laughing as if she hasn’t already attended every other book launch. “Your book’s ocean themed, right? Did you get a slip ‘n’ slide?”

“If you bring one we’ll set it up,” Pete says with a tired chuckle. “But, no, really, it’s all gonna be more of the same. A few snacks, signing sessions, giveaways for the fans that show. Oh, and speeches and a reading. God, I hate the speeches and reading bit. I never know what to say and I never know what to read.”

“Just do what you always do,” his mom says. “I can’t help you with what to say but things are always wonderful when you read the bit of the book that was most important to you.”

“Right,” Pete says, thinking back through what he's written. He barely remembers writing it, how is he supposed to pick the best part to read? Still, he nods. “Alright. Same thing as always, then?”

His mom smiles and Hillary copies the grin.

“Same thing as always,” Hillary says, poking at Pete. “It’d be too exciting if anything changed.”

 _Yes_ , Pete thinks with a bittersweet tone,  _and it would be asking too much of the universe, anyway._

~

Of course, the day of the book launch is when everything does decide to change.

Pete dresses as nicely as he dares, mostly motivated by his mom’s discerning eye as he pulls a pair of slacks and a nice button-up shirt from his closet. The first year, he’d worn a full suit at the request of his agent and, for a book about the worst parts of his life, it felt horribly out of place.

The first year, everyone had shown up with smiles that faded by the time he'd given his speech on the book's backstory; the first year, only a morning of drinking could attempt to calm the messy storms of his mind.

This year, though, it's the blue tones of his shirt that have him feeling at ease. His mind loses itself in a simple place— a simple beach— he finds himself wishing to call home.

“I suppose you’ll want to get there early,” his mom says, standing in his doorway. “To help set up and all. Would you rather Hillary and I show up later or do you want the company now? I’ll need to pick up your father and uncle in a few hours but I can spare some time if you need it.”

Pete waves off the suggestion, the familiar irritation of hearing his mom speak about his dad curling in his gut. His dad’s not a bad guy but Pete somehow never forgave how quickly he moved across the country after the divorce was finalized. “You guys will just be bored if you come now. I’ll be fine and, besides, you know how dad hates waiting.”

His mom laughs, shaking her head-- the sharp edge of her smile, though, tells Pete everything he needs to know about how she still feels about the divorce. “That I do. Well, then, at least let me walk you to the door. Hillary’s out buying your gift— and don’t look at me like that, you know we had to buy you a gift! But I’m sure she’ll be one of the first to arrive.”

Pete nods at her words, already preparing himself for the exhausting day ahead of him.

“I’ll see you guys there, then,” he says as they reach the door. “I hope it’ll be a nice time for you.”

His mom smiles-- genuine, this time-- and wraps him up in a hug. “And I hope you know how proud we are.”

It’s not the first book launch and it’s not the first time his mom’s said it but Pete still feels overwhelmed with warmth as tears prick his eyes. Even when he finally makes it outside and into the cab waiting, listing off the bookshop address is hard around the soft knot in his throat.

The drive is just long enough for him to tuck away the sentimentalities arising each time he thinks back on his time writing and how lucky he’s been to have his mom’s support. He knows it can’t have been easy reading about all the thoughts he’s had and how horribly he's felt; he knows he’s directed fault and blame at her more than once, stupid and foolish and lashing out at anyone who couldn’t understand. He’s disappeared for months at a time, hidden in pretty words and distant thoughts, and she’s always been waiting to hear how the adventure went. He hasn’t been perfect and she hasn’t treated him like he is; she’s treated him like he doesn’t deserve any less love because of it.

He takes a steady breath as the cab comes to a stop, paying the driver with a shaky hand. He’s always like this before a book launch and he doesn’t imagine there will ever be a day where he isn’t: terrified.

Groups of fans form a line towards the bookshop though there aren’t too many yet. They smile and wave when they see him, waving copies of other books to prove their love. Pete grins back, waving as he walks towards the entrance, and fights down more tender emotions that appear when he sees the happy faces watching him.

All such emotions scatter, however, when he bumps into somebody blocking the door.

“Sorry, oh my god, excuse me, I—” Pete cuts off as the other man steps back, his eyebrows furrowing together. “Wait, do I know you?”

The man standing before him— a bit older, with slumped shoulders and the beginning of wrinkles on his cheeks— carries a familiar presence as he glances around nervously. Large dark eyes find Pete from beneath a mess of light brown hair, the man blinking nervously as he fidgets with an envelope in his hands. Normally, Pete would take a step back and wonder if this is the day a crazed fan— or extreme hater— attacks him but, somehow, he feels as if he should know the person before him.

“I don’t… We’ve never met,” the man says, almost guilty. “But I guess you know my nephew, Brendon. He said… He told me to talk to you.”

It takes a second, a mere moment, and then--

“Roy." Pete's mind supplies him the name without telling him how he knows it, a small sound placed on his tongue with no further remark. It’s just one flat, no-nonsense word left in his mind as a souvenir from a time he forgot.

“Yeah,” Roy says, pulling back a bit from Pete’s sudden declaration of his name. He steps further away from the line of fans, gathered away out of hearing distance though a few watch with curious eyes. “He sent me this letter or package or… You know, I don’t know what it is. I didn’t think to check, I just… It felt important.” He pauses, gazing down at his own hands. The smallest grains of sand collect on the envelope, sticking to his fingers as he brushes them away. “It came in the mail and he called a few days ago to make sure I got it. He wouldn’t explain what was going on but he said to give it to this writer, Pete Wentz. I’d guess he’s a fan but I don’t visit enough to know.”

Roy trails off, words stuck in the air as his eyes flick back and forth-- trying to find the sentences he had spoken. There’s a chill in his voice, a message Pete can’t seem to decode, and Roy’s eyes come back to him with a narrowed suspicion.

“Look, I’ve always had a bad feeling about that beach and I… I have a few nightmares about it, too. Brendon says you stayed there a bit and he’s a good kid and I trust him. But I don’t know you and, well, all this mystery has me more than a bit confused,” Roy says. “I don’t want him getting mixed in with any sort of crime or troubles. I didn’t check what’s in here because I like to think I can trust my nephew but if you put him up to anything… What kind of books do you write, anyhow?”

Pete takes a certain comfort in the fact that Roy’s far more nervous than him. Though the situation is odd and Pete barely remembers Brendon as well as he should, at least he isn’t the one stammering and sweating in front of a bookstore.

“Usually? Um, realistic fiction, I guess,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “But I’ve been looking into other genres, recently. I actually just published a book that’s better categorized under fantasy. There’s a release party for it today if you want to join or— Oh!” Pete stumbles back a bit as Roy shoves the envelope into his hands, dusting off his palms.

“Just take it,” he says, staring at the envelope. “And do you… Do you feel anything weird when you hold it? I know it sounds crazy but you said you write fantasy so maybe, I don’t know, maybe you’re a bit more open-minded to that stuff?”

“I mean, I… I guess I try to be open-minded,” Pete says, glancing nervously at the fans watching the exchange. He’s hesitating outside the bookstore with a strange man shoving packages into his hands; he’ll be lucky if anyone keeps quiet about the shadiness of it all.

“Then feel it,” Roy insists, half-crazed. “Look, I don’t know you and you don’t know me but Brendon said you’d understand. I’m not trying to be the stalker fan here or to be something you should worry about. I hadn’t even heard of you until Brendon said— er, no offense. But, really, tell me what you feel.”

Paper and sand are Pete’s first thoughts and he frowns as he peels at the glue keeping the envelope shut. Now that he’s holding it, the thing almost feels empty. If this turns out to be an elaborate prank or worse— his mind goes back to the fears of being attacked— he might have to quit writing altogether.

He tenses when the envelope's open, more dust and sand keeping a thin piece of paper company.

His thumb brushes alongside the bits of sand.

And he feels it.

 _It,_ that thing Roy was talking about— a chill, a sudden burst of light in his brain, a sunrise and sunset all within one breath. He feels immersed in an ocean, coated in a light only he can see. It lasts for just a second— less than that, he’s sure— and then it’s gone.

He must have imagined it, must have wanted a reaction and received one from a sleep-deprived mind. But then he meets Roy’s eyes— patient and understanding, cautious and afraid— and he knows, with all his words and all his delusion, not even he could have ever made such an extraordinary experience up.

Slowly and with Roy’s eyes on him, Pete pulls the sheet inside loose. It’s not quite paper, he realizes as he frees it from the envelope. There’s a sleeker quality to its texture, something more like a photograph.

Pete knows this could still be a prank or, at least, something less dramatic than he’s imagining. Even so, his breaths shudder as he flips the picture around and all his inner arguments become untenable in the face of what he sees.

Brendon, kneeling on some rocks with his arms outstretched to take the picture. Brendon, bending awkwardly towards the water to capture something more in the image.

Brendon—

Brendon and another boy beside him.

It's someone Pete doesn’t know but feels as if he might recognize if he looks through his dreams hard enough. He’s shirtless and half-hidden in the water, drops of ocean clinging to his sunshine-shaded hair— gold and red, the shades fading like a sunset. Eyes as blue as the water around him follow the camera, narrowed with the slightest bit of suspicion but burning with the fiercest bouts of hope.

There’s something off about the picture, though, and Pete could spend forever trying to figure it out. He’s certain something’s shifted a bit to the left, his stomach twisting as if he’s not quite sure whether he locked his doors or not. His eyes linger on the stranger’s— though it feels almost wrong to call him such in his mind— pale skin and shy smile, the way he seems to rest all his weight on the rocks he’s pressed against, hands tightly pressed into fists. Pete's caught on the red cheeks and exhaustion emanating from him; he almost looks as if he’d been holding his breath while the picture was taken.

The strangest piece, though, are the words scrawled messily across the picture, black sharpie distorting the image and calling attention to itself in all capital letters.

_HE NEEDS YOU_

Three simple words, words far more confusing than Pete has ever written.

“What is it?” Roy asks, shifting his weight with his hands in his pockets. “Brendon didn’t… He’s not pranking you, right?”

A more sensible man might assume this is all a joke and shove the picture back, frowning and rolling his eyes. A more logical man might forget all about this and insist on never seeing it again.

But Pete’s never claimed to be wise and his eyes keep on the picture in his hands. It almost feels wrong to be holding it in such a public space, to run the risk of someone gazing at this image. A tendril of something possessive curls in Pete’s gut, hot and uncomfortable, and he tightens his grip.

“It’s…” He runs a finger over the stranger in the picture, breath catching in his throat as he imagines he can actually feel the smile beneath his touch— warm and soft and achingly familiar. “I… I think I know him.”

Roy’s silent as Pete gasps for breath, unaware of any reason he would react in such a manner. He doesn’t know this boy, he doesn’t. He can’t and he won’t fall for any tricks, won’t let himself believe that his life has suddenly taken a magical turn when it’s never been so kind before. It’s a prank, like Roy said, or, maybe, even a misunderstanding.

But Pete’s not so willing to believe this was an image meant for him to comprehend. Not even when his thoughts scorch with failed attempts to match this face with a memory; not even when his veins burn and his throat aches and his entire body ignites at the mere sight of a boy with gold in his eyes.

Like the character he created. Like the creature he wrote about while isolated on that beach.

Was he ever as alone as he remembers being?

“Hey, anyway, so, that fantasy book you were talking about,” Roy asks, his voice sudden but not enough to tear Pete from the picture. “I might pick it up before heading to work. It’s the least I could do to make up for… for whatever this all is. But, well, what’s in it? What kind of story did you write?”

What did he write? Something sad, he’s sure. Something make-believe and symbolic, something dredged up from the most twisted parts of his mind like a body floating to the surface of a lake.

What did he write?

_I wanted this story to be beautiful._

He wrote something that still lights a strange sort of fear inside him, words with cutting edges embedded in his skin and lungs.

_But it’s not an innocent adventure or fairytale to pass down. It’s not a myth or legend or fable._

He wrote something horrifically honest, something he still desperately tries to convince himself was fiction. But the smile in this image is the same as the one he struggled to describe and the shades of this stranger’s eyes cause his hands to itch with the desire to go back and add a thousand more details.

_It’s a horror story. It’s a nightmare._

What kind of story is it?

_It’s the most realistic story I’ll ever write…_

What did he write about?  _  
_

_It's..._

“Patrick,” he says, at last. Another name dropped onto his tongue but sweeter, a collection of sounds said like like a song he’s forgotten. Memories tug at the fragile fabric of his mind, the tiniest of images seeping in with the steadiness of sand through a cracking hourglass. Blue and gold and stars and sun— moon and monsters and horrible knives. His mind has no plot and his thoughts hold no meaning-- here one second and gone the next. He doesn’t remember what happened on that beach but he remembers this boy’s name— he remembers Patrick smiling underneath the shine of a million stars.

One second of fleeting thoughts that can barely be called memories. One moment of grasping at the colors in his mind and trying to paint the full picture.

But Pete’s a writer and all he knows are his words.

“I’m sorry,” Roy says. “What was that?”

“Patrick,” Pete repeats, blinking away the tears now obscuring the ethereal image he holds in his hands— tears to make up for the months he’d forgotten the true meaning of the name, tears for the way he still can’t remember what makes Patrick so special. Still, he says the name again as if he will lose all his progress should he ever stop. “Patrick. I… I write about Patrick.”

Though he doesn’t remember why— though he has no rational reason in his mind— Pete smiles and lets all his pretty words— his fancy sayings, his pretentious paragraphs— disappear.

Gone and lost, charms in the sea.

And nothing— not even the three chilling words left as a message for him— can bring them back again.  
  



	21. Occult

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mysterious or secret knowledge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to the_chaotic_panda for beta'ing <3

_occult_

_works dealing with witchcraft, spiritualism, psychic phenomena, voodooism, etc... works dealing with the mysterious or secret knowledge and power supposedly attainable only through these and other magical or supernatural means_

The heat on Pete’s skin and the chills running down his spine hours later at his book release party are, for once, completely separate from the anxiety such celebrations typically bring. Instead, the trembles in his hands and the shaky smile on his lips are part of something bigger, something deeper, a reaction to a horrible gut feeling connected to the photograph folded up in his back pocket.

He brushes his hand across it, imagining he feels a strange sort of electric shock spread up his arm and into his shoulders at the action. The picture— the knowledge that he has it, the feelings it evokes— is a constant weight on him, distorting everything with a new center for the world to revolve around. A new gravity to keep Pete grounded.

No one else in the bookstore, though, seems to notice the monumental shift in the universe or, if they do, they’ve been in on the game all along. Everywhere Pete looks, he sees the setting with a startling clarity. Blue and yellow balloons scatter near the ceiling while seashore-themed decorations cover every available surface. Perhaps the publishers had a feeling Pete didn’t plan on writing any more books after this; he can’t recall them ever going so far in creating a themed party. Still, the attendees seem to be appreciating it, laughing at the shell-shaped cookies and blue punch left on the refreshment table.

Every so often, Pete will catch his mother watching him and she’ll nod, a meaningful gleam in her eyes as she looks through his books-- his entire collection of works proudly displayed on a bookshelf near the center of the room. People gaze longingly at the latest one, whispering to each other about the genius  _Infinity on High_ as if there’s anything brilliant about writing a story he can’t remember; as if there’s any valor in ignoring the message he was handed hours ago.

“Excuse me, Mr. Wentz? Would it be alright to talk for a few moments?” Someone asks him in a soft voice, a brunette woman with her hair back in a tight ponytail and phone ready to record. A blogger, then, or some other sort of press. Pete smiles tiredly and nods, looking away from the blue streamers and images of beaches taped to the walls.

“Oh, yeah, of course,” he says for the thousandth time since the party started. Of course, he’d love to tell people what each character symbolizes in his book. Of course, he’ll sign his name over pages he bled and wept and screamed over.

Of course, he’ll take the picture and keep it close and, of course, he knows exactly what to do.

Somehow, it amuses him that these two simple words have become his favorite lie. Even someone as unpredictable as him has to have his go-to habits, after all.

The blogger— a kind but relentless girl by the name of Hayley— leads him away from the thicker parts of the crowd and towards the bookshelves strategically placed to create a barrier between the celebrations and the rest of the public. Though he won’t say it, Pete’s glad to leave the decorations and noise behind him; someone had decided on ocean waves as the background ambiance and the gentle sound only causes Pete’s stomach to twist in an unfamiliar sense of longing.

It’s the same way the sea blue shades and sandy yellows makes him homesick for a place he’d thought he’d forgotten, fluttering in his chest like the flipping of a page. His heart’s a book, written with words still dripping darkened ink into the empty aching blankness of his ribs. Each beat is a page turned, each breath a tumble of letters left to rot beneath his skin. He’s an entire series of novels, aching to be read by the one person who could ever get away with stealing his words.

But even a thousand books must end someday and, when the last page has been turned, it won’t matter who’s had the chance to read the words or not. Pete understands this better than most but the simple fact does nothing to calm his nerves.

Thankfully, Hayley’s interview is a simple one, filled with questions he’s already answered for at least two other members of the press today. He gives the expected advice to younger writers— “write what makes you uncomfortable, write what makes you afraid, write what feels wrong and right at once” — and smiles at her compliments. He can’t tell if she’s a fan or someone looking for more website hits but, he supposes, at least she’s not pushing too hard.

“And what was the writing process for this book?” Hayley asks, phone held towards Pete’s face in order to catch the answer.

Pete shrugs. He doesn’t have an answer— he barely remembers writing the book— but he tries anyway. “Well, I guess, I, uh, I got my inspiration for certain passages and scenes pretty suddenly in my head so a lot of it was just, you know, sitting down and transcribing what I saw. I mean, a lot of it was rushed so there was a bit of an editing process but it all worked out, I think.”

“And where would you say that inspiration came from?” Hayley raises an eyebrow. Again, Pete shrugs though the action is stiffer this time.

“I… It’s…” Where did he get the idea to write about a siren prince, a hidden treasure in the sea? What was his inspiration for such a mysterious tale, such an impossible story? Almost on instinct, Pete reaches to press a few fingers into his back pocket, letting them linger against the picture. Swallowing nervously, he gives the most honest answer he can find. “A friend, I guess. It was inspired by a friend.”

“Oh.” At this, Hayley seems genuinely confused, her arm dropping a little. “I would have expected it to come from the beach.”

“The what?” Pete asks, jerking his hand out of his pocket as if he’s guilty of something.

“The beach,” Hayley says, clearly meaning nothing by it. “Your fans know you left to stay at a beach house over the summer in order to write this novel and there was speculation that it inspired the genre change. But if it was a friend, that’s far more fascinating— you know, considering you were assumed to be isolating yourself. Please, go on.”

“Oh, yeah, the beach, it was, well… You see, my friend, I met him at—” A howl goes through Pete’s mind like the wind warning of an oncoming storm. He met Patrick at the beach, he must have. But he can’t remember how, can’t remember why it’s so important. He can’t remember any reason for his insides to twist at Hayley’s presuming comments about being alone.

“Oh! Oh, Is this him?” Hayley bends, her exclamation tearing through Pete’s mind as he thinks it over.  _Is this him?_ What can she possibly mean by that? What on earth would such a question—

Pete looks down as Hayley stands, a picture held firmly between two fingers. Suddenly, Pete feels too light-headed— too empty, too hollow— to stand. He stumbles back, hitting a bookshelf but not caring at how it nearly topples over, as Hayley stares scrutinizingly at the picture of  _him_.

“I received an advance copy of the book, you know, since I have reviewed others for the publisher,” Hayley says as if she hasn’t turned Pete into nothing but a bundle of fear and panic. “This looks a bit like one of the characters. Patrick, right? It does look like him.”

It takes everything in Pete not to hiss for her not to say that name, the words collected in his chest in angry groups begging to be released in a scream he’s been biting back since the day he left Patrick behind.

“Oh, and this must be on the beach!” Hayley says. She looks back up to Pete, a new light in her eye— not cruelty but curiosity and, somehow, the latter is worse than the former could possibly be. “Is that where you two met? But, then, why wouldn't he come to the release? And what's with this message? Is it a reference to the book? An easter egg? Or is there something else going on? Mr... Mr. Wentz, forgive me, but was everything in that book as fictional as we were led to believe?”

She’s asking too many questions and Pete can’t answer a single one. He doesn’t know how he met Patrick, he just knows that he did. He doesn’t know what the message means only that it’s written in the same font his nightmares are drenched in.

He doesn’t know if his book is fiction. But he knows it feels too real to ignore.

“I don’t know,” he says, hands shaking at his side. “I… I can’t answer that, I— I can’t…” His words are as messy as his thoughts and, for once, he doesn’t care. “Look, I need to go. I’m sorry but I can’t answer any more questions.”

“But—” Hayley’s cut off by a gasp as Pete snatches the picture back and pushes past her, mumbling half-sincere apologies in his rush.

He doesn’t feel any better now that the photo is back in his grasp, as he’d thought he would. He stops by the edges of the party, looking in as dozens of strangers and friends and family members celebrate a book which has brought him nothing but anxiety. People speak of sirens as if they know the lore; they joke about the mermonsters and wonder aloud if they were symbolic of Pete’s own demons.

Someone says Patrick’s name and it nearly brings Pete to his knees.

How dare they say his name with such irreverence? How dare they treat him as a new character to hate or love, someone they have the option of ignoring merely by turning a page?

And how dare Pete turn him over to these vultures, the same people who scoff or sigh at the stories Pete told of himself? How dare he— confused as he is— ever pretend he’s in the right mind to write about someone he’s forgotten?

And how dare he forget him in the first place?

Nothing feels real as Pete stumbles into the center of the floor, barely registering the fact that he’d been called there. It’s a rehearsed action, a practiced move he’s made one too many times.

Somewhere else in the room, someone announces that Pete’s about to read a passage from his new book— their voice doing a wonderful job of sounding genuine in their excitement. A book makes its way into his hands— Pete catches sight of his mom’s warm eyes beside him before she’s back by his sister— and the room goes silent.

Silent.

The picture’s still in Pete’s hand, pressed to the cover of a book he’s meant to read to these naive people. People who will hear a siren and translate it as fiction; people who won’t believe in Patrick.

And, Pete? The writer, the author, the reader?

“I never believed in anything I couldn’t see,” he begins, reading the prologue because he didn’t plan on reading anything else. “I’ve always tested my beliefs, with a pen or a handful of pills. I couldn’t believe in life because I was never sure my definition was the same as everyone else’s. And I couldn’t believe in death because it always seemed to evade me when I needed it most.

“So, it goes without saying, that I don’t believe in much. I’ve never believed in anything more than what I could put my hands on and I’ve always chosen to keep my hands where I can see them. Paranoia and anxiety don’t exactly lend themselves kindly to explorations and adventures.” Pete’s voice begins to shake as his eyes scan ahead, catching what he has left to read. The room is quiet, the people lined up and listening as if what he has to say is gospel. Or a confession.

“But it wasn’t an adventure when I left to visit a beach miles away from the comfort of home. It wasn’t an exploration when I held my hands in the water and let them brush over fine grains of sand,” he continues. “I believed in the beach— it was the only thing I believed in, even when my hands yearned to reach the stars. For, you see, I’ve always dreamed of the stars and sun. My lucky charms, my guardian angels, my favorite forms of symbolism. And yet, I’ve never tried to touch them. So, I suppose, I never did believe in them. Not until—”

Pete’s voice breaks and catches on an emotion that’s been burning in his gut like a fire he forgot to put out. He glances up, eyes following the smiles on the faces of those listening— fans and press and publishers and family.

Not one smile can bring him the ease he needs. Clearing his throat, he looks back down to his book and tries to tell himself his voice isn’t wavering when he reads.

“ —Not until I met him. Someone whose story isn’t really mine to tell, though I took it anyway. Someone with stars in his blood and smile, the lights of the sun in his eyes,” Pete reads. “When I saw him, I knew I could believe in him. And, when I held him, I knew that every impossible thing about him is true. I believed because I—”

This time, when Pete cuts off, it’s not from sentiment or nerves. He simply can’t read further, can’t convince himself to pretend Patrick— a person he needs without remembering why, a person who needs Pete but wasn’t known to him until today— only exists because Pete saw him.

He can’t stand here and say Patrick’s only real by Pete’s permission alone.

He can’t say that Patrick’s important just because—

“I loved him.”

Pete’s eyes shoot up, searching for the voice. His breath’s a prisoner in his lungs, body filling with the heat of a sun-soaked sea as his eyes land on the person’s who’s spoken.

“That’s the next line,” Roy says, though he holds no book in his hands. “I believed because I loved him.”

Pete’s mouth goes dry and he can barely feel the book in his hands. Roy’s eyes suddenly seem so young, so pained, as they meet Pete’s. There’s something in them that wasn’t there before, something raw and tender and—

Familiar.

Recognition floods Roy’s brown eyes but it’s not for Pete. It’s a recognition for something else.

It’s a recognition for someone else. It’s a terrible mix of horror and guilt, of knowing something Pete has yet to see. Pete takes a step forward, the never-ending wind in his mind growing to the threat of a storm as his lips move. “How do you—”

At once, the crowd begins to move, someone declaring the reading done with and saying that the floor is open for questions. They sound irritated, frustrated, though Pete can’t imagine a reason why. His eyes are only on Roy’s, on the familiar sense of discomfort he finds there.

“Roy,” he calls, drowning in the people calling his own name, suffocating on the press of questions against his skin. Who inspired this story? Who inspired Patrick’s character? What does the ocean symbolize and, they ask this the most, did Pete really fall in love while he was gone? “Roy!”

Roy backs away, blinking like the past few moments have been nothing but a dream. The book slips from Pete’s hands but Pete doesn’t hear it hit the ground, too focused on his fear that Roy will leave before Pete has the chance to question him.

He loved him? How could Roy know that was what came next unless he, too, has felt the same emotion? Recollections— half-forgotten, half-lost— tug at Pete’s mind like they’re struggling to keep up. Words in a melodious voice, whispering about lovers who’ve brought nothing but pain.

Pete shuts his eyes, a blister going through his thoughts like the sun rising within it. He tries to find the source of his almost memories, tries to put Patrick’s face to the words— and, god, he tries to remember how he met Patrick, who Patrick is, what he has to do with the siren Pete wrote of— but they all slip away before he can even tell they’re there.

“Pete!”

Pete opens his eyes.

He looks to Roy.

Time stills and the world stops. The people around them are nothing but sand in an ocean they’ll never understand, lost and drifting and dissolving into nothingness as Roy says just three words.

“Go to him.”

Pete’s stomach churns at the simple words, everything else fading to static. Go to him? Leave on a whim, with nothing but a photograph to lead him? Nothing but a few half-remembered memories, a handful of feelings that something important might be waiting for him on a beach he’d meant to leave behind? Go?

“Alright, Peter seems to be a bit overwhelmed right now so let’s just move onto the giveaway. Everyone should have had the chance to pick up a ticket at the door, so we’ll just read a few numbers out and one of our volunteers will direct you to the prize table.” It could be his agent speaking; it could be any number of people who’ve only cared while he’s hidden behind computer screens and typewriter keys. He can’t recognize the voices now, though, as his world slowly colors itself back in.

He blinks and the first eyes he sees are his mom’s.

She’s across the room, confusion etched into her features as she holds one of Pete’s book close to her chest. Pete winces at the sight— what will she think this story means? — until he sees the shade of the cover.

Not blue.

Not gold.

Grey.

Pete takes a sharp breath as he recognizes the book in his mom’s hands, the first story he ever wrote. A novel he never meant to publish until someone said he should, a story he didn’t realize he needed to share. This is the book his mom holds so tightly? Years later, books later, a lifetime later? Her knuckles are white and her nails dig in and Pete has never seen her look so afraid.

She looks as if she means to speak. She takes a step forward, maternal instincts taking over as reassurances hide the confusion she’d been showing. Her smile is as kind as it’s ever been, ready to wrap Pete up in comfort and take him back home.

When Pete takes a step away, she stops. She nearly seems hurt, offended, and that confusion from before returns.

Pete looks to the door, panicked energy building in his veins. His mom follows the gaze, eyes widening as if she understands what he means to do.

Her grip on the book tightens and she, too, seems to shake. A knot tightens in Pete’s throat and something— sand, pain, tears— stings his eyes.

If he stays, if he lets his mom tell him everything’s alright, he won’t have the strength to go to the person who needs him now. If he looks at her terrified eyes— and why wouldn’t she be terrified, holding a book like  _that_?— for a second more, he’ll never let himself leave.

And, he asks himself, does he really want to leave? Does he really need to go?

_GO_

The word comes from inside Pete’s mind, a broken scream that has him stumbling back. It’s almost a voice he recognizes, sitting next to his own.

It’s a sound he can’t ignore.

When Pete turns and runs, all dignity tossed to the side, he doesn’t look back at his mom once.

He doesn’t think of anything but the picture of the boy he’s left behind.

A picture he's now left somewhere on a crowded bookshop floor.

~

_This isn’t any sort of writing I’ve ever done before. And I don’t imagine it’s any sort of writing I’ll ever do again._

_It’s not for others to read— strangers or friends or otherwise._

_It’s not for a book and it’s not for the public._

_I barely believe it’s for myself._

_All I know is that I couldn’t sit in this airport without writing something. I can’t do anything without writing, really. My hands shook for the pen as I packed the bare minimum, terrified that Hillary or mom or someone would arrive in time to stop me. My mind became poetry and purple prose as I waited in the back of a taxi, taking too long to tell them where I wanted to go. Even as I searched for last-minute flights to an undesirable location— for who wishes to travel to a place that feels so haunted? — words flew across my thoughts, waiting to be written down._

_But now I have the ticket and I have a time to leave. Everything’s working out and isn’t that all a bit cliche?_

_And that’s why this writing isn’t for a book or for the casual reader. It’s… I don’t know what it is._

_I forget so much of what I write it’s beginning to scare me; it only makes sense to write what I haven’t forgotten yet._

_Though I know nothing of him, I haven’t forgotten Patrick. Though I can’t recall how we met or what we spoke of or why I ever left, I can’t forget his smile, now._

_And, as time passes and as I close my eyes and pretend to dream, I know more._

_I know he's a lonely planet, too afraid to stir and wake the other celestial bodies around him._

_I know he’s the cat and the canary, all at once, chasing and hiding— a predator and prey._

_I know he’s the sweetest flavor of candy, a jar of honey, a pretty face with ugly thoughts told through rose-petal lips._

_I know he’s a junkyard for rusted trauma and misused talents_

_He’s criminally carefree when the stars swallow our worries and fears_

_He’s digging through my mind with razors and fangs and claws_

_He’s the reason for anyone to read my books, the reason people press rewind on songs, the reason anything beautiful exists, at all_

_He's a thunderstorm so bright you shut your eyes_

_He's a hurricane_

_And, I know, he’s mine. To save. To protect. To hold._

_He is mine._


	22. Horror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inducing feelings of terror
> 
> Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd <3 I do so hope you still enjoy, though

 

_horror_

_noun_

_a genre of speculative fiction of which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers or viewers by inducing feelings of terror. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears  
_

_The world and voices and forgotten things in my head told me to go. They told me to leave, to run, to find something or someone I’d lost._

_They told me to come here._

_So here I am_ …

Pete closes the notebook as the cab pulls to a stop, jerking on the uneven road. The driver, a quiet man with a taste for classical music, mentions that they’ve arrived but Pete takes his time in allowing himself to realize this. In his mind’s eye, he can already see the house: dim, dark, empty yet so full of the things that color his dreams and nightmares. Past that, he can see the beach but these details, unlike the house, are obscured.

“Thanks,” he says, voice hoarse from the silence he’s treated himself to since leaving the book release. The driver murmurs his own gratitude as Pete pays him but the exchange is short-lived, the car speeding off as Pete carries his bags to a driveway he thought he’d left behind.

An inexplicable feeling of fear overtakes him, washing through his bones and rinsing out the courage he’d known was there before. He’s left as tired as the house before him, merely awaiting an experience rather than chasing after it. Two sentences play through his mind as he waits for any sense of bravery to take root.

_He needs you_

_Go to him_

_He needs you_

_Go to him_

They should be more than enough to convince him and, yet, they’re not. These are the words that keep him still, his mouth dry and eyes wide as the sun sets in explosive shades behind this house. An extravagant scene better painted for someone more deserving than him. Someone who will save whomever it is that needs saving. Someone who will go without looking back.

Someone who won’t shut their eyes and think of a picture they no longer have.

Pete had realized his mistake minutes after boarding the plane, reaching into his pockets to find nothing but the memory of the photo he’d shoved away. By then, it had been too late to go back for it; by then, though, he’d already had the image memorized.

Or, he thinks as he pictures red-gold hair and smiling eyes, it’s not the photograph his mind has etched into his skull. Perhaps it’s merely the memory of someone he’s to find behind these doors.

Patrick. He knows he’s here for Patrick. Someone who’s haunted his dreams and fantasies with sad smiles and longing gazes, every piece of him matching the descriptions Pete had written for a siren in his book. Patrick— someone Pete thought only existed in his mind.

He takes a step forward at the same time he opens his eyes, hands shaking but mind certain that he’s doing the right thing. The driveway and porch welcome him with the secure sensation of cement beneath his feet, none of that sand and dust he’d been so certain he would feel. He shakes his head and frees it of any remaining hesitations— or, at least, he throws them to the side long enough to continue.

Something about the house calls to him, a beacon of promises yet to be fulfilled and other treasures he’d buried somewhere in the sand in the backyard. Pete searches through his mind for a shovel, a map, a bright red X to lead him to the gold he’s been dreaming so vividly about. But nothing appears— nothing but the aching hollowness of a memory that’s been snatched away.

A few more steps and then he’s before the front door, reaching for his key. A few more seconds and then he’s opening the door and wandering inside.

A few more blinks and breaths and heartbeats. A few more forevers.

And then it all begins to collapse into him.

Small emotions and little visions prod into his mind with the sting of needles and the gentle press of sunlight. Memories that smell of salt and warmth and blood and fear cast shadows over every caution and Pete walks forward, slow but sure, into the home.

It doesn’t feel like remembering as details make themselves known, lining them alongside the man in the picture, but it doesn’t feel like knowing, either. It feels like the sun rising in his mind when he suddenly thinks of seawater dripping from soft, red-gold hair. It feels like sinking and drowning and gasping for air when his mind reminds him of blue eyes gazing at him fondly and pretty pink lips whispering his name.

And, when he looks out the back window and sees the ocean? When he hears the cry of the beach and sees the bleeding lights of the rising stars in the sky?

When he sees the sea and all its mysteries, it feels like a knife in his side. It feels like arms around his neck, begging him to stay. It feels like dreams and nightmares and every waking moment spent writing about this place.

It feels like a thousand memories fitting into place and, in the strangest of ways, it feels like coming home.

Pete steps forward once more, bags falling from his hands as he prepares to run. He doesn’t have the chance to move, though, before he hears the sound of someone behind him.

“Pete?”

He turns with a speed he didn’t know he had, eyes landing on Brendon as he wanders in through the front door with a guilty expression on his face. Pete doesn’t respond, too busy trying to breathe.

“You came,” Brendon says, no small amount of wonder in his voice. “You got the message and you actually came.”

“Where is he?” Pete says, at last, muscles tense and voice wavering. “Where is—”

“Patrick?” Brendon asks. The name sounds wrong on his tongue, too familiar and afraid. His eyes dart towards a door beside them and back at Pete. “He’s… We should talk first, you know. He’s… He’s…” He keeps glancing to the side and Pete follows his eyes.

Pete knows that door and he knows that room. It’s the bedroom he stayed in while he lived here, the one with a writing desk and view of the ocean— the one with the bathroom and bathtub still bearing bloody stains from the last time he was here.

A thousand horrible scenarios tear through Pete’s mind, none of them promising a happy ending. He moves towards the door; Brendon mimics the action, eyes threatening.

“I said we should talk.”

“And I asked where he was,” Pete snaps. “You said he needed me and I’m here now so you can fuck off and let me—”

The door opens. Creaking and crying, it opens.

Pete turns. He doesn’t think; he doesn’t rationalize. He barely even feels.

Red hair like a sunset and blue eyes like a storm. The oversized sweats and t-shirt are new additions but Pete would recognize that smile anywhere. That breathless grin and shy gaze, those trembling fingers brushing bangs away from smooth, pale skin.

“Patrick,” Pete breathes, his heartbeat louder than his voice could ever dare to be. “Oh my god, Patrick.”

And Patrick’s smile grows.

There’s no time to think as Pete runs forward, Patrick stumbling towards him with open arms. They fall into each other as if it’s what they were made to do, nothing more than creatures shaped to touch and hold the other, to kiss and feel and cry. Pete keeps Patrick close to his chest, running his hands over every bit of him he can, feeling for scars or wounds or other injuries. But Patrick’s fine, it seems, having escaped death and harm.

Having escaped scales and gills, too.

Pete doesn’t realize any of this— or perhaps he does but he doesn’t find it important when Patrick’s pressed so close to him. Patrick’s lips dance across Pete’s cheek and neck and, at first, Pete imagines they’re the strange kisses of a strange creature.

Then, when he pulls away, he sees Patrick’s mouthing words.

He’s mouthing his words, lips moving in frantic unreadable patterns.

He’s mouthing them because, Pete realizes, he can’t speak.

Pete pulls back further, hearing nothing but the still, windless night around them as his blood grows cold.

Something’s gone terribly wrong and it’s been so obvious from the second Patrick walked into the room— wrong because Patrick shouldn’t be walking, at all.

“Patrick, what’s going on?” Pete asks, the pauses between each word more for his benefit than anyone else’s. “You’re… You’re not… You’re not a siren, anymore.”

Patrick rolls his eyes like it’s absurd, like the world’s laws haven’t shifted miles in the wrong direction. None of this is right and none of it makes sense and, when Patrick looks back at Brendon, Pete hates both of them just a little.

“He…” Brendon starts, backing away from the situation despite— or maybe because of— Pete’s demanding gaze. “Pete, I said we should talk. He… He needed you and he… he did this. He won’t tell me how, or, I guess, he can’t tell me how. But he was suddenly a human one day. He gave me a warning, told me to come back at a certain time because he would need my help but I would never have guessed… I just found him holding onto the rocks, gagging on water and we took forever getting him into the house because he had no clothes and kept tripping and he couldn’t talk, fucking Little Mermaid style and—”

“Little Mermaid,” Pete exclaims, turning to Patrick. “You turned into… You did this for me? So we could be together?”

Patrick nods with a sigh like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and Pete leans in to kiss him before Patrick has the chance to gain any of that lost air back. It doesn’t matter, though— the force of their collision would have been enough to knock the air out of both of them anyway.

Pete grips the back of Patrick’s shirt, pulling and pushing— anything to feel closer, anything to feel the warmth of his skin. The world disappears for just a moment as Pete does his best to sink into Patrick, the kiss shaking and shifting and turning until Pete’s biting on Patrick’s lips— biting and tearing and needing all of this to be fixed.

Pete swears it’s midnight when Patrick pulls away, everything going dark around them when Patrick laughs but Pete still can’t hear a sound.

“It didn’t work,” Pete says, lost. “It’s… It’s supposed to—”

“It’s not reversible,” Brendon says, face red as he stares out the window behind them. “I already asked that and he’s pretty fucking adamant about the fact that he wants this to be permanent.”

Pete turns back to Patrick and his heart is like an anchor in his chest when Patrick starts moving his lips once more, speaking as if he expects any of them to hear. He gestures and he smiles but Pete knows there’s something darker beneath this; no gifts have ever been so kind before.

Pieces begin to fall together when he catches Patrick wincing, hand brushing his chest and his smile faltering for just a moment. Pete watches closer, watches every flinch and gasp of pain.

When everything begins to make itself into something horrible in Pete’s mind, he tries asking one more time. “Patrick, what did you do?”

Patrick pauses and reaches for Pete, grabbing his arm so Pete has no choice but to pay attention. He’s slower with his words and, this time, Pete pales when he’s finally able to understand what Patrick’s trying to say.

 _“For you_ ,” he mouths. “ _For us. Together. Safe. For you.”_

It’d be a good reason if Pete wasn’t already so scared.

It’d be a great reason, in fact.

But Pete’s terrified.

He’s terrified and there’s something glinting just beneath the collar of Patrick’s shirt.

Pete reaches for it before Patrick can step away. He pulls the shirt down and reveals the jagged charm hidden there, the object tied to the bit of fishing line around Patrick’s neck. He imagines Patrick would be crying out if he had his voice but he doesn’t and—

He doesn’t. And the piece of Sunset Blade, broken off from a larger knife and tied to the necklace Patrick wears, is the reason why.

A chilling shadow rises from deep within Pete, its speed and terror inescapable as he gazes at the weapon pressed against Patrick’s skin. There’s a blistering burn in the shape of the broken weapon beneath Patrick’s collarbones, all sharp edges in a violent red shade. The bone swings, taunting them, and Pete feels bile rise in the back of his throat.

Why would Patrick do this? What would compel him to give into such torture? And why would he pretend any of this is okay, like the fact that his own executioner’s knife is hanging around his throat like a pretty like charm means nothing? How can he smile and kiss Pete knowing he’s slowly dying? How can he do this, at all?

 _“For you_ ,” Patrick mouths again and Pete doesn’t want to know if he’s been asking these questions aloud or if his panic is just that obvious.  _“Pete, for you_.”

“No,” Pete says, backing away. Patrick’s smile falls and he stumbles forward, the clumsy sight enough to make Pete close his eyes. “I never wanted this.”

Patrick shouldn’t be tripping around like he has no grace; he should be dancing through waters and commanding the sea to do his bidding with nothing more than a gentle smile. He shouldn’t be burnt and hurt. And he shouldn’t be mute.

God, of all the crimes Pete’s witnessed, this is the worst. Patrick, the siren with the voice of magic, should never lose the most beautiful talent he has.

Pete’s turned before he’s realized he’s decided to do so, hands over his mouth as Patrick’s fingers tug at his shoulder. Brendon calls out to him— “let’s talk, let’s go somewhere else, I told you he needed you” — but Pete doesn’t listen. He can’t listen.

He can only shove Patrick’s hands away and follow the humming of the water outside, the lost voices within the waves and the shimmering scales shed in the desperate seas.

~

Hours pass as Pete sits on the beach, sky falling into the darkest of nights as restless grains of sand shift beneath him. He digs his hands into the shore, the nostalgic feeling of sand between his fingers thrilling his heart; it’d be perfect if only there were green and gold in the waves. The light of the moon creeps upon him from every direction, though, taunting him with what he’s lost.

The stars burn down with a lesser light, a lesser pain, and Pete pulls his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on them. It’s strange, he thinks, to see starlight shining on everything but Patrick.

He sighs, eyes slipping closed as the waves whisper a tempting tune.

It’s not that Patrick’s transformation has left him unlovable or unwanted. Pete’s more than willing to accept a Patrick with legs and no powers— a Patrick without his voice, even. Though his mind wonders if Patrick is Patrick without these things, he knows he would care for him regardless.

The question isn’t if Pete can love a Patrick’s burning out like a star near its end, awaiting an explosive death that will leave the galaxies bright for centuries. The question is if Pete can forget the pain of all this long enough to give into the joy he supposes he should feel.

Perhaps it’s selfish, but he also can’t tear himself away from the guilt that locks around his throat each time he thinks back to the charm burning a crater into Patrick’s skin.

Somewhere in the burring waves before him, a sun charm is hidden and Pete can’t help but ponder on that parallel. Sun and sunset, both fashioned into necklaces meant to bring about something neither of them can grasp on their own— luck and love and hope. But is there luck in losing a battle, a war? Is there hope in silence and confusion?

Is there any love in a sacrifice which wounds both? Because Pete is selfish and he’s hurt and he can’t help but wonder what would have happened if he’d stayed. Worse, he wonders what would have happened if he never came here at all. Would Patrick still have his voice? Would he have developed his powers into all they’re supposed to be?

Would he still be a siren, a mystery of the waves?

Pete doesn’t have the time to think of answers. The soft shuffle of stumbling feet across the sand breaks his concentration and he opens his eyes, turning his head to watch Patrick making his way towards him. He sways with each step, his hips jerking awkwardly as if they still expect a tail to be beneath them. More than once, he appears as if he may fall but, lip caught between dull human teeth, Patrick eventually makes it to Pete’s side, collapsing to sit beside him with a sigh.

Pete doesn’t speak because he has nothing new to say. Patrick doesn’t speak because he can’t, something which still wounds every emotion Pete has left.

Eventually, as the silence expands into a universe of its own, Patrick passes a notebook over towards Pete. It’s open to the first page and empty but for one sentence, scrawled in handwriting better fit for a child just learning to write.

_I don’t understand why you’re upset_

Pete swallows thickly. He doesn’t understand? How can he not understand? He passes back the notebook, shaking slightly as he does so.

“I didn’t know you could write,” he says instead of answering, eyes on the ocean and every dream he had of this place— every dream he had of Patrick.

Patrick starts writing, a pencil held tightly in his fist, and Pete hates the scribbling sound more than he ever has.

There’s more on the notebook when Patrick passes it into Pete’s hands.

_Brendon has been teaching me. Reading. Writing. I learn fast._

Fast. That may be so but he still writes in disjointed phrases as if full sentences are too much work, as if he’s tired before the first word is done. None of them are in that special style Patrick speaks in, the almost-formal and almost-magical way with words he has. Here, he’s been reduced to juvenile sentences and foolish scrawls, nothing like the wonders he once possessed.

And Pete doesn’t love him for the magic and awe and fantasy; he doesn’t ache because he won’t get to see Patrick’s tail or fangs or claws.

He hurts because he knows, deep down, Patrick must be hurting, too. And Pete never wanted to be a reason for Patrick to get hurt.

Patrick takes the notebook back, an irritated crease between his brows, and furiously scribbles more lines onto the page. When he passes it over, Pete’s greeted with a great confusion of letters and lines.

_We are together now. We are safe. The monsters cannot find us. They cannot hunt me on land. We can be together. We can be happy._

And, beneath all the messy sentences, Patrick’s last lines are etched into the paper so viciously the page is nearly torn.

_You should be happy_

“And how can I be happy if you can’t speak?” Pete snaps, tossing the notebook down and turning a fiery gaze at Patrick. “How can I be happy knowing you’re hurt because of me?”

Patrick tries to mouth that he’s fine, the words as hurried as the gasping breaths racing through Pete’s throat. He scrambles for his paper but Pete stops him. His hand finds Patrick’s shoulder and he shoves him back into the sand, leaning over him as if daring him to look away.

As Pete uses his free hand to press lightly beside the burn on Patrick’s chest, Patrick merely blinks up with shimmering eyes. Those, at least, have stayed the same.

“Don’t pretend you’re not hurt,” Pete whispers. “This is killing you, isn’t it?” The words are only half a question and Patrick looks to the side, mouth shut.

Pete doesn’t tighten his grip on Patrick’s shoulder enough to cause him pain; his touch is only the reminder that Pete has his heart and emotions in this battle, too.

“You told me it would kill you,” Pete says, his words slow but not carefully chosen. He says what comes to his mind first, releasing them into the air as if they’ll disappear if he doesn’t. “So, tell me again, will this kill you?”

Patrick hesitates, eyes still averted. Finally, with sickening certainty, he nods.

Pete pulls back, allowing Patrick to sit. He doesn’t know what answer he would have preferred but it wasn’t this one. Not the one where Patrick’s eyes hold nothing but resignation, not where Patrick’s smile refuses to light up in all the ways it should.

Pete looks away as Patrick reaches for his notebook. He doesn’t want to ask any more questions but he has to know. He needs to know.

“How long, then?” His voice is low, monotonous, and he does nothing to change this fact. Patrick starts writing and Pete asks the question again, imagining he can hear any other voice besides his own. He hates how the roles have switched but only barely, how Patrick's the writer with still only his story to tell. “Do you know how long?”

 _A few months. Maybe a year_ , Patrick’s paper says when he shows Pete.  _It’s long enough. Long enough for us to be happy._

Pete laughs without humor, shaking his head at Patrick’s bewildered look. Perhaps he is selfish but he wants more than a countdown. He wants more than borrowed time and an expiration date.

“You keep say- using that word. Happy.” He looks at Patrick, the big blue eyes and doubtful lips. “Do you really think I could be content knowing we’d just be waiting for you to die? Is that what you think I want? Is that… shit, Patrick, is that what  _you_  want?”

His voice is low and husky, breaking the silence around them with unforgivable wavers and tremors as Patrick writes.

Pete’s never hated writing quite as much as he does now.

 _I want you_ , Patrick spells out and Pete can hear the desperation laced in the lead.  _I’m scared but I don’t care. Not if I have you._

And, then, below the rest:

_I love you_

Pete smiles against his own will and ignores how the expression shakes. He looks at Patrick and tries to see more than the little time he has left. His fingers brush against Patrick’s chest where he knows the charm rests. The broken piece of blade, the curse. Patrick winces and Pete imagines he should be kinder, more understanding. He’d spoken to himself of sacrifices; maybe it’s time he accepts he’s not the only one allowed to make them.

_I love you_

Still, when Patrick captures his wrist and looks at him with imploring eyes, Pete can’t help but whisper the one phrase in his mind, burning like a sun about to fall.

“I wish I could have heard you say it.”

Patrick acts fast, catching Pete off-guard as he shoves him back into the sand the way Pete had done to him mere moments ago. His kiss is rougher than it’s ever been, biting into the sensitive skin of Pete’s lips and swallowing up the whines that escape from Pete’s throat. Shameless panic and desire react before common sense does and Pete reaches back for Patrick. He pulls at Patrick’s hair until he’s at the pale skin of his neck, kissing and biting and marking him in ways he couldn't when gills coated the surface-- in ways that look too much like the burn on his chest. His skin grows cold but he doesn’t look away.

Another metaphor to ignore, his traitorous writer’s brain whispers. Another symbolism he shouldn’t ponder.

Patrick pulls away from Pete’s grip and trails down lower, leaving kisses on his collarbone and down his chest, tugging at Pete’s shirt until it’s off and tossed to the side. Hands slide across Pete’s sides, tracing his shape and leaving goosebumps in their wake. He positions himself between Pete’s legs, grinning cockily as he tugs at the jeans next. They’re harder to pull off than they were in the dream but, once they’re gone, Patrick teases Pete with kisses on his inner thigh, small nips and licks against the tanned skin. Pete bucks up when he kisses the side of his cock, crying out with his eyes slamming shut.

“Fuck,” he breathes. “Fuck, Brendon better not have been teaching you all this, too, or I’ll—  _fuck_.” Patrick shuts him up with another bite on his leg, one sure to leave a mark.

Pete’s fingers slide against sand as he scrambles for something to grip, something to keep him grounded as soft red hair swings along his skin. It’s more instinct than anything else when he wraps a hand in Patrick’s hair, tugging enough to see Patrick’s eyes smiling back up at him.

Pete doesn’t think of how these kisses would feel if Patrick’s teeth were a bit sharper. He doesn’t imagine how Patrick’s voice would sound— wrecked and low and breathy— either.

His heart does twist, though, and he tells himself it’s merely from the sight of Patrick between his legs.

Patrick smirks and pulls himself back up Pete’s body, leaning in to steal another kiss. Pete returns it with twice as much ferocity as before, rocking up towards Patrick and running his fingers through his hair. Patrick only pulls back once to yank down the sweats he’d been wearing, awkwardly working his legs through the holes. For the first time since returning, Pete laughs and helps Patrick learn how to best pull them off until they're no longer in the way.

His laughter fades into gasps, though, once Patrick straddles his lap and presses their cocks together, wrapping a hesitant hand around both of them. Unlike the dream, he’s shy and unsure, breathing shakily as he strokes, collecting the precum spilling from the tips and picking up the pace. He’s slow and practiced— and Pete does his best not to think of Patrick practicing, of Patrick touching himself for the first time, bucking up into his own hand with his legs spread and face flushed, gasping and crying out with a voice that isn’t there…

The thoughts alone are enough to have Pete rocking into Patrick’s hand with a desperate roll of his hips, whining and whimpering with guilt and lust coiling angrily in his groin. Patrick grins breathlessly at Pete and, emboldened by the reaction, he twists his wrist and strokes a bit quicker, his free hand pressing into Pete’s hip with dull nails leaving marks in the skin.

Though stars begin to burst in Pete’s mind, he can’t take his eyes off Patrick, red-faced and shining with a layer of perspiration over his body. His shirt sticks to his skin in dark spots and his mouth hangs open, hollow gasps and inaudible groans escaping as he loses his rhythm to the pleasure so obviously coursing through his body. Pete would give anything to hear how Patrick would sound at this moment, to hear those moans and whines and cries.

The sight of Patrick’s ecstasy, though, is nearly enough on its own and Pete fumbles to reach for him, pulling him in for a messy kiss that’s more teeth and tongue than anything else. Patrick gasps and his hand falls to the side as he collapses towards Pete, hips still rocking forward and gaining a sloppy friction against Pete’s cock and stomach. Pete goes with it, not missing a beat as he leans down to grab Patrick’s hips, pulling him close enough that their cocks are trapped between the two of them, the contact enough for their bucking and grinding to speed up.

Pete’s voice is the only one crying out but he doesn’t care. Not when Patrick’s eyes are watching him with a hazy pleasure, a foggy purity as he experiences this for what must be the first time. The first time feeling someone so intimately, the first time giving into such intense waves of lust.

“You look perfect,” Pete pants. Patrick only smiles slightly but it lights up the entire sky; as the grin grows, Pete's certain it's lighting up the whole damn world. He places rough kisses on Patrick’s cheek and neck as the grinding intensifies. Their bodies slick with sweat and want, nails and teeth leaving marks wherever they trace. Pete’s hands trail down Patrick’s back and towards his ass. When he grabs both cheeks and pulls Patrick even closer than before, he can pretend the responding gasp has a bit of voice in it.

Their lips meet once more, the kiss interrupted with sighs and moans as Pete feels himself nearing his climax. In just a few more breaths, kisses, seconds, they come undone at nearly the same time, white shooting across their skin as their bodies tense and convulse at the sudden pleasure taking over their nerves. It’s lightning and fire and everything Patrick’s always been and Pete could drown in it all if given the chance.

As they come down from the high, Pete lowers a trembling Patrick to the sand, his eyes blinking tiredly and lips moving as if he’s forgotten he can’t speak. Pete curls up beside him, pressing a kiss to those trembling lips— anything to remove the reminders of what’s been given up. He smiles and runs his fingers through Patrick’s sunrise hair, damp with sweat and reminiscent of the wet feeling it’s always had before. Though Pete hates what led them here, he wouldn’t give it up just yet. He doesn’t think he knows how he could with those three words written so easily on the notebook somewhere next to them.

“I love you,” he whispers though Patrick’s already dreaming. He brushes a hand down the back of Patrick’s neck, down his arm, down his side. Anywhere he can touch; anywhere he can feel.

He imagines, for a moment, that they can make this work— that months might feel like forever and that the pain won’t be as bad as Patrick once said. He pretends that they’ll find a cure or that this is all a lie.

But then his finger snags on Patrick’s shirt and the collar pulls down, revealing the red burn beneath.

And, as the night grows cold and the ocean roars, Pete feels nothing but the sick knowledge of defeat.


	23. Mythopoeia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The making of a myth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, not as long a wait as it could be, though the chapter is a bit shorter than usual. A reminder that there's no more set schedule since I have another fic with an actual deadline I've been working on lol. But there will still be updates! Just a few left but they will occur <3
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated and loved <3
> 
> Thank you to the_chaotic_panda for beta'ing

_mythopoeia_

_noun_

_a narrative genre in modern literature and film where a fictional or artificial mythology is created by the writer of prose or other fiction; the making of a myth or myths.  
_

Patrick used to say that Pete was luck. He’d compare him to the charms he wore, to the myths the sirens would share. Bathed in bathroom lights and bandages, he’d wax poetic about Pete’s character. The stars know all, he would claim, so they must have known Pete would be here to save Patrick from the existence he’d come to call a life.

It’s not a lie Pete ever allowed himself to believe. If the stars knew all, they would know Pete is no gallant hero, no prince, and no true love.

Even now with dusk painting the horizon, the reminder that they’ve been resting on the beach all night, Pete can’t help but hate the stars. He’d slept little throughout the night, waking occasionally to Patrick’s jerking figure beside him, but his dreams were stained with nightmares. He imagines a life where Patrick forgets how his own voice sounds, where he loses the siren songs he was taught as a child. He dreams of gold fading from sea-blue eyes, of pale skin turning grey, of the shine in his hair going out.

He dreams of stars falling from the sky.

Patrick shifts beside him, restless as the stars spin indifferently above. Pete knows he couldn’t have slept well, either. Though the night was warm and the waters were calm, Patrick’s never been one to sleep at night. Is this another siren trait that’s been stolen? Or is something else of himself that he’s changed?

Patrick’s hand digs into the sand beside him, dull nails pressing against the grains in a way that looks all wrong. His face scrunches up and his lips part, a sharp breath taking place of the whimper Pete knows he’s trying to give.

Slowly, with shaking hands, Pete pulls the charm— the necklace, the weapon— away from Patrick’s skin. He doesn’t dare remove it from his neck entirely— it’s not his place and it’s not his choice— but even the slight relief crossing Patrick’s face is enough to have Pete considering it. Streaks of red and violet curl around each other on Patrick’s skin, violent signs of his body fighting the changes happening from the inside out. Shallow breaths fill the air, his chest trembling with each inhale as if his ribs aren’t quite in place. Worse, though, are the vibrant burns and blisters alongside the broken blade, lightning strikes embedded into the pale expanse of his skin.

Before, when Patrick was bleeding out in his bathtub and sinking into his own despair, he had been a car crash Pete couldn’t tear his eyes from— the beauty of a storm tossing a ship against the waves, the ethereal sight of electricity running from the sky to the sea. In those moments, Patrick could be anyone and anything. He was magic and promise and a heroic story waiting to happen— a fairytale, a myth, a legend to be told in every year to come.

But now Patrick’s become a man thrown off the crashing ship, the bystander struck by a crashing car. It’s real and it’s tangible and, for once, Pete finds himself looking away. If he stares for too long, he can see every minuscule hint of pain— every sign that Patrick wanted anything but this. He made this decision, yes, but Pete has to wonder what forced his hand first.

Like this? Human and speechless, burned and dying? Patrick’s not the happy ending at the end of a fairytale; he’s become a character in one of Pete’s own books. Tragically damaged and wounded all because Pete put his pen to paper and bled.

Pete stands, every joint aching with regret as he pulls himself forward and up. With Patrick asleep, it’s easier for Pete to look towards the stars as they gaze down at this scene. Eyes of gold and ominous knowledge, a power that Pete didn’t know he believed until Patrick’s lips were on his own. The horizon bleeds a dangerous shade of sunrise, orange and red against the black and white of night. Pete ignores the daybreak— the colors are too like the wounds marring Patrick’s skin.

Though the stars gleam with the white light of shark teeth and mermonster bone, at least they have never pretended to be a sign of luck. Cold and callous and distant— the way all magical things are supposed to be.

“You were supposed to protect him,” Pete finds himself whispering, the word as hushed as Patrick’s gentle breaths. They tremble in the air, too fragile to exist as he finds himself on the edge of the beach, water pressing against his feet as he stares up into the sky. “You fuckers, you… What’s the point in creating sirens if you can’t keep the last one safe? And what was the point of letting us meet? Why… Why would you protect him for this? Why would you protect  _me_?”

_The stars are not meant to protect you_

The words are not his own but they flee from the darkened corners of his mind with the same sense of writing down a sentence. In Patrick’s voice— in Brendon’s, in a mermonster’s, in everyone’s voice but his own— the phrase repeats.

_The stars are not meant to protect you_

But didn’t they? Weren’t they the first to greet him in that hospital room? Didn’t they decorate the sky he kissed Patrick under? Didn’t they give their blessing when dreams kept him connected to the one person he was supposed to forget entirely?

Shouldn’t the stars want them happy, for Patrick’s sake if nothing else?

As the Sun begins to rise, the stars threaten to give up their position for the evening. They fall but not in any spectacular way, more like selfish dips into the ocean rather than any sort of promise to grant the one wish Pete has left.

Rage, hot and heavy, swells in Pete’s chest, coating each beating of his heart with its horrible sting. Despair and hopelessness and emotions he’s never had any reason to write tear through him with the power of a summer storm.

_The stars aren’t bright enough_

Pete has never hated the stars more than he does now.

_Here, then._

_Have a Sun._

The Sun— the opposite of a shooting star as it travels up its steady path, the one celestial being that’s always been a constant.

The stars weren’t meant to protect Pete but the Sun has never played by their rules.

“Please,” he begs, oranges and reds spilling across the ocean towards him. Reaching, pulling, pointing. Pete steps into the waves, water embracing his knees as he walks forward. “Patrick said I was lucky. He treated me like a good luck charm but I know I can’t be what he needs. Not… Not like this. Not without the only luck I’ve ever had in my life. The stars can’t protect me— that’s why I’ve always relied on you.”

His voice wavers and his throat closes up. His hands shake, his skin chills, his heart refuses to beat at its regular rhythm.

He holds his breath, a man drowning on his own desperation.

He holds his breath and nothing happens.

Nothing but the Sunrise, the steady growth of light among the ocean’s shadowed surface.

Nothing but the Sunrise, the warmth of the day and the assurance of something more.

Nothing but the Sunrise, the luck and charm and prophecy it holds.

Nothing but the Sun— the Sun and chain brushing against Pete’s ankle when the water pulls up around his hips.

Pete drops without thinking of why, without wondering what his hopes hold this time. Head beneath the water and breath trapped within his lungs, he scrambles for the feeling of metal beneath his touch. He fights to find what’s been lost, to grab onto whatever he can get.

His chest is just beginning to ache when, finally, he emerges with the charm he thought he’d lost— the Sun, the luck, the protector he carried around his neck like a boy scout badge:  _This one’s for surviving my own mind._

Grains of sand cling to the well-known shape, the Sun necklace dripping but still just as vivid as the day it was lost. Not rusted, not tarnished, not broken. Good as new and, possibly, even better than before. Though the water is cold, the Sun in his hand seems to burn.

Vibrating. Beaming. Glowing in the subtlest of ways. Blink and it’s gone but, if Pete closes his eyes entirely, he can see what’s been embedded within.

_Have a Sun_

Buried for months in the place where the Sun and stars still shine, beneath the sand and moon-kissed waves. Not even the Sunset Blade was blessed with such power; not even Patrick was created with all the beings of the sky.

The Sun and stars are Patrick’s protectors and the moon is what grants the mermonsters their ability to curse blades and knives. The sand granted Pete his memory so what power rests now that this and so much more have been combined?

The stars belong to Patrick; the moon is to the monsters. Even the sand is its own master, taking and giving as it pleases.

But the Sun is what Pete loves most. Gold against a blue-streaked sky, red and orange and brilliant.

He knows what powers it can grant.

No hopes. No dreams.

Knowledge beyond his years— beyond what he is— fills his blood and he turns to run to Patrick.

Patrick— still sleeping and curled on his side— doesn’t wake until Pete’s pressed his lips to his, a smile dazzling the world when his eyes open. Patrick sits, reaching for Pete and mouthing his name. Pete nuzzles into his hand when it finds his hair, stroking and scratching and tugging him close. He presses a hand flat against Patrick’s chest, kissing his neck with no explanation.

Then, he closes his fist around the necklace and pulls. Fishing wire snaps with an angry red line across Patrick’s neck, tight and then loose in a matter of seconds. Patrick’s eyes widen; he gasps violently.

And then Pete runs.

He doesn’t need to look back to know Patrick’s following on unsteady feet, seconds from collapsing from legs he still can’t quite use. Still, Pete runs and doesn’t turn, eyes set on the rocks where this entire adventure began.

He doesn’t face Patrick until there’s stone beneath his feet and water beside him, waves crashing against the path he’d taken so many times before. Patrick heaves for breath before him, coming to a stop as well, face red in confusion and outrage.

The shade, the fantastic rose-red shade, deepens when Pete tosses the Sunset necklace out into the sea. It sinks within a moment, lost in the sunshine spreading across the waves.

Patrick shouts without sound, his lips twisted to  _“NO”_ as he lunges for Pete. Pete keeps calm, steps back, and then lifts the charm in his other hand.

The Sun necklace Patrick’s only seen a few times before.

“I have a reason for that, okay, trust me,” he says. Patrick does as he says, going still and watching Pete with narrowed eyes. “You remember this, right? The good luck charm I used to have? I… I lost it the day those monsters attacked and I didn’t think I would ever get it back. I was ready for it to be gone forever, to be lost in the ocean. But, you know what? I found it, Patrick. The ocean brought it back and… and… and it did it in an amazing way. Because I found it in the place where water meets sand. Where ocean meets land… Where myth meets man.”

He speaks as if they’re words he’s written, rhyme and metaphor meant to be torn apart. But there are no readers here and this necklace means more than any pen ever could. He wraps it around his wrist as Patrick watches, not understanding and slowly stepping closer with each breath he takes.

“The sand and earth never did anything for me,” Pete says, holding his hand close to his chest. “And the stars are full of shit. You said I captured you— you called me a Sun and claimed to be the planets I have under some spell. But that was wrong… so wrong.”

Heat presses against his back, a sign of day coming. Patrick’s closer now, close enough that Pete can see every detail of the worry in his eyes.

_This one's for surviving my own mind; this one's for finding a new way to live_

_This one's for us_

“Let’s both be Suns, Patrick. Let’s both burn and blaze and light the sky. Because you captured me in the exact same way and it’d be a crime to pretend you didn’t. Let’s collide and form something greater, a star the scientists haven’t named yet. Everything we are and everything we have can collapse and form a new galaxy, a new universe. We can redefine the world as we know it. And you know why?” Pete’s eyes scorch with the fire of a lucky charm when he meets Patrick’s, blue enough to dare him to burn brighter than before. “We can do everything because I love you.”

When Pete steps back, rock disappears into water and air. When he steps back, his eyes shut and he prepares for the ocean’s touch surrounding him.

When he steps back, he falls and he doesn’t stop.

And, as ice catches his flames and the sea douses his words, he hears Patrick crying out his name.


	24. Epic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...the setting is vast in scope, covering great nations, the world, or the universe, and the action is important to the history of a nation or people...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I adore the_chaotic_panda for betaing :)
> 
> 2\. I also absolutely love das-verlorene-kind for making such lovely fanart of this fic! If you have a tumblr (or even if you don't) please go show her all the love. She's so talented and I'm so lucky to know her <3
> 
> P.S. her awesome Before It's Voiced fanart is [HERE](http://das-verlorene-kind.tumblr.com/post/177416943348/pete-is-a-writer-patrick-is-something-else-and#notes) and I love it to absolute bits

_epic_

_noun_

_a long narrative poem written in elevated style, in which heroes of great historical or legendary importance perform valorous deeds. The setting is vast in scope, covering great nations, the world, or the universe, and the action is important to the history of a nation or people.  
_

 

Pete wakes with nothing but the numbing memory of ice-cold darkness around his throat. It’s a sensation he’s familiar with, if not fond of. The fact that there’s anything powerful enough to still his words for just one moment— to cease his breaths for just a second, to calm and quell his soul for just one broken heartbeat— is a fact he’s always tried to capture on the page. Even now, his skin feels cool and breaths brush through his being like the gentlest of waves— so gentle, in fact, that it’s almost as if they’re not there at all.

He sinks a bit deeper into this strange sleep, this not quite awake moment of consciousness. Something delicate cradles him as he twists into the emptiness; something simple caresses his skin.

And someone’s hands find his shoulder; someone’s voice calls his name.

“Pete,” they plead, the word bubbling across him in a way that causes his nose to wrinkle. “Pete, please, wake up.”

He is awake, he’s sure, though he’s not so certain he’d like to be. It’s been so long since he’s felt so at peace and the tone of this person’s voice only promises panic and distress.

“Pete, please!”

The last word cracks, shatters like a wave against ruthless sand, and Pete feels no choice but to open his eyes.

Blue greets him, a lustrous shade caught between fear and gold. He watches the colors dance before him, crossing his body and face like light caught beneath water, and it takes him three more heartbeats to put a name to what he’s seeing.

Patrick.

The world falls in on him with all the intensity of a tidal wave, eyes widening as he takes in the sight of Patrick— Patrick, Patrick,  _his_ Patrick— fussing over him. He’s murmuring to himself, a detail important enough to cause Pete’s heart to skip, and brushing his hands across Pete’s chest as if checking for wounds. Pete grasps his wrist to pause his ministrations, grinning when Patrick finds his eyes open.

“Pete!” He cries out, his voice more lovely than before, shimmering like music through glass. “Pete, thank the stars!”

He takes Pete’s face in his hands without a thought or warning, pressing cool lips against Pete’s own.

“I was terrified,” Patrick says against his mouth, refusing to part for any longer than necessary. “I thought I lost you when you did that.”

“Did what?” Pete asks, falling into the kiss like it’s a breath of fresh air. “I don’t remember what—”

“When you fell into the water,” Patrick says, pressing their foreheads together. He trails a finger down Pete’s cheek, holding tightly to the back of his neck with his other hand. “Next time, tell me your plans?”

Pete laughs, memory returning with lightning strike flashes. The sun charm and fear and hope that Patrick would, please, be free from his curse.

It had worked, it seems, in the best of ways. Pete presses into Patrick’s hand, grinning at him. “Well, that implies that I know what my plan is and— Wait, Patrick, how are you…”

He trails off as Patrick kisses him once more but it’s not the kiss that still him this time. No, it’s the feeling of fanged teeth against his lips, the touch of claws along his neck, the gills beneath his hands.

It’s the fact that Patrick’s a siren once more.

Pete pulls away and turns to stare at his surroundings. Sand rests beneath him but not like the sand of the beach— this is smoother, finer, clumped together just a bit more— and the air isn’t like air at all. It wavers and sparkles and lights up according to the sun and… And it isn’t air.

It’s water.

Pete presses a hand against his own neck, feeling the additions flapping like living things beneath his touch. Gills tickle his palms and his own claws— finer than Patrick’s, smaller but no less sharp— press into his skin. His teeth feel too large for his mouth, jagged as a shark’s and countless as a cheshire cat’s, and he presses his lips together, his tongue running over the fangs. The claws are strange to see at the ends of his fingers when he pulls his hands back, the nails black enough for him to joke to himself about the polish he used to wear-- dark enough for him to pretend they mean more than they do.

He meets Patrick’s eyes, reading unwritten words there— entire novels of understanding and confusion, waiting for Pete to confirm this for himself. Once Patrick’s eyes have said enough, Pete finally looks down towards his legs.

No.

Towards his  _tail_.

Silver shines back at him, sleek with scales glimmering like coins as they travel up his torso in patches around his ribs and spine. He’s not like Patrick, not a siren, and he can tell from the cautious way Patrick watches him inspect himself. He doesn’t rush to offer any explanation and Pete doesn’t bother with questions.

“Are you okay?” Patrick asks and Pete can suddenly hear the difference, the shift in all his words. Dipping and rising like muscles at work, fighting against the water trying to block all sound out. Beneath the waves, Patrick's voice is more than it seems; it's a weapon constantly poised to attack. Pete brings his hands up to his own throat, wondering if his own vocal chords have been strengthened to withstand the impossible. The sensation of claws at his neck, though, frighten him more than they should and he trails his nails down to the markings on his chest. Stars gleam back up at him from beneath his necklace of thorns, celestial tattoos he never asked for. 

Patrick calls out to him again, cautiously but no less powerful. "Are you okay?"

Slowly, Pete nods. His hair shifts, flowing around him like a mane, and none of this feels real.

“Yeah, just, like, give me a few minutes,” he says, flicking his tail. It’s a bit like stretching his toes when he focuses on the end but, he supposes, it’s better not to compare this to legs. “Or a few weeks.” He pokes at the star markings again, an entire constellation of them decorating his chest like freckles. They’re not like his tattoos, though those have changed, too— shimmering with each movement, glimmering as if painted on with magic. No,the stars are more like birthmarks, a shaded patch of skin and nothing more. He looks up to Patrick and he imagines he tastes salt when he speaks. “Is this real? Am I awake or is this one of our dreams?”

Patrick seems as afraid as Pete feels, terrified that the moon and sun will snatch this away the second he blinks. Water frames Patrick like a reflection when he answers.

“It is real,” he says, hesitant though his lips twitch upwards. “This is real.”

The words sink in and then Pete doesn't need to hear more. 

Everything hits him with a sound like thunder, the spell of Patrick's voice and the sight of his own tail. He doesn’t think or try as he forces himself forward, shoves himself into Patrick’s arms with a smile bright enough to put the sun out of work. He holds Patrick close, spinning and wrapping their tails together as he laughs.

“Oh my god, then you’re really talking. You have your voice.” Pete shuts his eyes and focuses on everything that is Patrick. His senses have been dialed all the way up and he can hear the pounding of his heart; this close, he can hear the rushing of his veins. “I thought I’d never hear it again.”

Their lips almost brush as they speak and smile, having waited too long for a moment like this to even think of letting go.

“You brought it back,” Patrick says, smiling now that he knows Pete’s not upset. “But… how? Why?”

“I don’t know, I just… I’ve never believed in anything. But then you gave me an entire universe in every way you could. I had to trust your world because if it could make something as amazing as you then it has to be able to do anything,” Pete says, cradling Patrick’s face in his hands. “And you have to know why I did it. I couldn’t let you give everything up… Not for me. Maybe it was selfish but I couldn’t live knowing that you were hurting or dying or… I couldn’t. I couldn’t let you do that.”

Patrick’s still beaming, eyes luminous so far beneath the surface, and those blue-gold colors wrap Pete up in every promise they’ve made so far-- a present only Patrick can unravel. “But now you are the one away from home. You are the one—”

“I was done with the city long before I ever returned,” Pete says, meaning every word. “The people there don’t care and, I mean, I’ll miss my mom but she’d understand. I know she would.” He can’t take the deep breath he needs, relying on the water passing over his gills, but he imagines his lungs would be aching at this moment as he brings his hands down to hold Patrick’s. He could wax poetic, could color Patrick in every shade of his love with just a slip of the tongue, and he considers it. He considers falling back into those habits of his, those routines of written words and spoken pain.

Instead, he laughs and holds Patrick even tighter. He presses his tail as close as he can, scales sliding against scales.

"You're stuck with me now," he says. "Whether you like it or not."

He feels Patrick smile more than he sees it, the twist of lips against his cheek. "And who says I might not like it?" 

It's been too long since Pete's heard that playful tone in Patrick's voice, that hint of innocence and fun. A current of electricity races down his spine and tail, sparking from the amount of warmth growing inside his being.

"I don't know," Pete says, pulling away so he can properly look into Patrick's eyes. "You're a prince, aren't you? Are there rules about who you're supposed to want?"

Patrick's eyes sparkle with mischief, lips fighting another face-splitting grin. "Only that it cannot be a human."

"Oh, so now I really know it's all over for us," Pete says, loving the confusion in Patrick's eyes. "I know all about rebellious phases, Patrick. You clearly just wanted me for my legs."

Patrick’s laugh is a glorious sound, wet with mirth and joy, and he hides his face in Pete’s neck. A tremor goes down Pete’s spine when Patrick’s hair brushes along his gills but it’s okay— it’s a sign that this, just like Patrick said, is real.

“I will always want you,” Patrick says, kissing Pete’s shoulder before unwrapping himself and moving away. “More than I have ever wanted anyone else, I will want you.”

Pete tries to follow, feeling a bit childish as he struggles to get his tail under control on his way towards Patrick. It’s worth it, though, when Patrick laughs and evades him. Pete tries to turn but soon feels hands on his tail, adjusting him to a different position.

“My turn to teach you, then,” Patrick says, looking up with stars in his eyes, his lashes fanning out around them like a flower beginning to bloom. “Here. You may not be a siren but let me teach you how we swim.”

The water seems to burn as Patrick passes his hands repeatedly over Pete’s tail and fins, speaking to him about tail size and shape— things Pete bites his lip to keep from making dirty jokes about. All heat, though, fades to a comfortable warmth when Patrick appears before him again, arm-distance away but with Pete’s hands in his own, as sure as the ocean around them.

“There,” he says, tugging Pete forward slightly. “Now swim to me.”

It’s cliche and it’s cheesy but Pete can’t help but smile. “To you? Always.”

It’s cliche and it’s cheesy but Patrick smiles back.

It’s cliche but, Pete thinks, it could just be a happy ending.

~

Of course, if there’s one thing Pete knows, it’s that not all happy endings are free. Few, if any, appear with the gentle stroke of a sunset, the blessing of stars and sky.

Few last forever.

It’s already night when either of them receives an inkling that anything’s wrong. Perhaps Patrick’s let his guard down or assumed, as Pete had, that this meant no threat could come their way. Seated on the sand beneath the ocean, they trade their stories like trinkets, laughing and kissing between each one. Patrick talks about the rules of the ocean and tells Pete how to trust the waves. Pete speaks of the city and his book and how everyone loves Patrick though they don’t know a thing about him. As they speak, their fingertips meet on the sand, sending jolts of sensation all the way down Pete’s tail.

Pete pauses in the middle of a story about ocean decorations and underwater-themed treats, heart fluttering when Patrick links their hands together. It’s stranger than before, both of them hiding webs between each finger now, but it’s comfortable. It’s warm; it’s safe.

And then something in the ocean chills. Patrick pulls away, eyes widening as his tail flicks nervously beneath him.

“We have to go,” he says, hushed. His tongue pokes out like a snake tasting the air and his body stiffens, overwhelmed by whatever it is he’s sensed. He grabs Pete’s hand once more, eyes focused on the darkness around them as he tugs. “Pete, we need to go.”

Pete, confused and frightened, does as Patrick says, following him towards the beach and rocks he knows rest in the distance. Patrick looks over his shoulder and around them as if seeing something Pete can’t— as if sensing a danger that’s not yet arrived.

Nearly as soon as Pete’s thought it, though, the terror makes itself known.

In the distance but closing in, dozens of mermonsters swarm towards them, collecting like a nightmare— moving as one, disturbing the water in ways only such horrors can. Even now, far as they may be, Pete dreads the crooked fangs and empty eyes sure to greet him. He anticipates their leathery skin, their shapeless bodies, their soulless stare.

He fears their voices in his head once more.

Patrick pulls sharply on his hand, adjusting until it’s Pete’s wrist trapped in his grip, an anchor to the way Patrick darts through the waves with a grace Pete’s only ever dreamed of witnessing. Pete shoves his hair back, shaking enough his claws scratch across his forehead.

His tail— longer than his legs had been, still clumsy and awkward and new— force him forward towards Patrick, form and posture slipping from his mind as he imagines he can hear those monsters— those creatures, those demons— growing closer. Snapping teeth and growls and cries for their blood fill his ears and he can’t tell what’s real or fear anymore.

Water parts for them, bubbles lingering in their wake as Patrick pushes harder, faster, desperation rolling across his muscles like the ocean around him.

“Almost there,” Patrick says, reaching for something Pete can’t yet see. The rocks, he supposes, or perhaps the beach itself.

Either way, it doesn’t matter so long as it’s safe.

Either way, it doesn’t matter because, soon enough, something wraps itself around Pete’s tail. Pete’s heart pounds and he flicks the edge of it, fighting off whatever has attached itself to him.

He keeps his eyes on Patrick and the light of the stars framing everything he is. Eyes forward— eyes away from the way the mermonsters are catching up.

His tail flaps sporadically as the mermonsters continue their assault, a net of wires and thick cords appearing seemingly out of nowhere to still the movements of his tail and fins. This close, Pete can sense what Patrick must have earlier— the dried flavor of old blood on his tongue, the sharp bitterness of fear that follows.

Another net casts out and this one lands around his shoulders, his neck. His arms stick in the wires, the rough texture cutting into his skin without a thought.

Heart thrumming like thunder in his ears, body on fire, he wishes for just one thing— that Patrick can escape. Though adrenaline floods his system with jerky desperation and screams lock in his throat, he thinks only of Patrick.

Patrick— familiar with the waves and magic, swimming slower than he needs because Pete’s a liability when there’s no pen in his hands.

Patrick, if no one else, must be safe.

Pete can hear Patrick murmuring to him, promising that they’re close— they’ll be safe, they’ll be fine, they’ll escape. His tail— strong, terrifying in its power as he forces forward— hides him with its familiar green shade, its deceptive coloring.

Silver cannot hide in the ocean; grey holds nothing but pain.

The net tightens. Patrick’s grip loosens— just a second of confidence, a moment of weakness.

And Pete tugs his wrist free.

Mermonsters are on him before he can see if Patrick’s taken notice, if he’s realized Pete is gone. Fingers and claws pull him towards their web, towards their army, without care for how they scratch or cut. They tangle and tug at his hair, Pete’s head jerking backward from their roughness.

For the first time tonight, a cry escapes his scorching throat.

He sees the moment Patrick turns his head. He sees the moment Patrick realizes what he’s done.

“Go!” Pete shouts though all he wants is for Patrick to save him. “Go!”

But Patrick is still, staring as other monsters near him now. Still, wasting what Pete’s trying to do.

Still as the stars above— still, and just as silent.

“Patrick, siren prince.” It’s a voice of many, a slithering rippling sound that has Pete shuddering from memories of the last time he heard their tone. Dozens speaking as one, though he can’t place whose mouth is moving. “Have you forgotten our deal?”

Patrick’s far but not far enough that Pete can’t see how he stiffens or how his hands become fists. “Your deal has no place here.”

Laughter, cruel and malicious, answers him. “You are like your father— making vows you do not intend to keep. Were we not merciful in our last battle? Did we not spare you? Leave the ocean, we said. Revoke what you are— siren, prince, dweller of the seas— and we would let you live to see your lover again.” Something sharp finds its way towards Pete’s neck, pressed above his gills. “Shall we make a new deal, then? Your life for his?”

The words land on Patrick like blows, his expression flinching with each threat.

“He is not part of our war,” he says, though he drifts closer. “To involve him would declare battle on the humans.”

“Ah, but he is not human now, is he?” The voices slide over Pete, slick with a sick suspicion. “Not a man, not merfolk, not a siren. Not quite anything so what does it damage for us to take him?”

The words sting more than they have any right to, coming from a monster, but Pete swallows down his pride long enough to speak. “Patrick, just leave. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you truly believe that?” The monsters ask, directing the question at Patrick. Patrick doesn’t respond but his answer is seen clearly enough in his face. “We felt his shift from man to this and we know your stars are up to something. That much magic doesn’t just appear for any human.”

Patrick smiles and, Pete’s sure, in any other situation, it would be fond. “Not any human, no. But you would be amazed at what the stars and I would do for this one.”

The monster nearest Pete, the one with the knife, shows its needle-like teeth with an amused skepticism.

“Is that so, little siren?” It asks, voice still carrying that of many. “Why don’t you show us just what you would do, then?”

Pete shuts his eyes and prepares for the blade across his throat, of blood in the water, of Patrick’s blood-curdling screams.

Instead, the knife disappears and the mermonsters flee, Pete in their grasp as they take him away from the beach— away from Patrick and his cries for them to let Pete go.

The water becomes colder, sharper, darker, and Pete struggles to keep up. He pulls away and pushes forward, begging to be free but needing not to be lost in a world not even his own people know how to explore. He shouts for them to release him— he shouts for Patrick to find him.

The mermonsters laugh and Pete can tell when they’ve left behind what’s become Patrick’s territory— the beach in the distance with victory in the monsters’ throats. Their claws dig into Pete’s skin and he lashes out with his own, blinded by the fact that Patrick’s been left behind; he may be safe but he’s alone and Pete old logic falls away now that he knows more about these creatures— they’ll never let Patrick live in peace. Pete lets the faint hope die— as he should have done before.

“Let me go!” He shouts, though it sounds more like a frightened shriek as his thrashing only causes the net to tighten around him. “Leave me alone! Get away! Stop—”

A sound interrupts his cries, foreign and familiar and beautiful. Not quite a voice, not quite a melody, but strong enough that even the monsters turn and face the notes rippling violently through the water to invade their pack.

They turn and face Patrick.

Only he doesn’t appear as Patrick, not really. His eyes glow through the darkness, golden as the stars above and twice as bright, a beacon in the water’s depth as he screams his song. Stars swirl across his body and scales, markings like tattoos come to life,  _Starry Night_ on Patrick’s skin and tail. He doesn’t seem to see as he sings— screams, shouts, cries. He doesn’t seem to care.

It’s not a song he’s ever sung for Pete, no words— human or siren— attached to the sound of his voice. It twists through the water like an instrument of its own, manipulating the waves and minds of those who hear.

It’s lovely. It’s perfect. 

It’s Patrick.

The mermonsters, though, don’t seem to hear it the way Pete does, all howling with hands slammed over the place where their ears should be. They scream and thrash and, if it weren’t for the bubbles circling Patrick, Pete would think the sudden waves were coming from them.

He shakes as he disentangles himself from the net, cutting free with his fangs and claws, and Patrick’s song reaches a higher pitch— a whistle of destruction calling the waters to do his bidding. He crosses the distance to Patrick, tossed away by currents of burning sea-- degrees away from setting itself aflame.

“Patrick!” He cries out, hands up to protect his face. “Patrick, we need to go!”

He gets close enough to grab Patrick’s hand, still familiar though his skin has gone dangerously cold. Pete tugs without a thought, pulling Patrick through the waters without a plan for where to go— only knowing they must hide.

It’s as he finds himself swimming down and out into sea— so far from the beach his stomach twists at the thought— that Patrick finally stops, slumping into Pete as the glow around his body fades.

“Pete?” He asks, looking around with red-rimmed eyes. “Pete, what happened?”

Pete blinks nervously, pausing and turning back to look at him. “You don’t remember?”

Patrick reaches, brushes his fingers down Pete’s cheek. “I just remember that I needed them to let you go.”

They should be escaping, hiding, but Pete’s heart is too tired to try. He presses his own hand against the new stain of stars on Patrick’s porcelain chest, cheeks warming when he feels Patrick’s heart beating against his palm.

“I think,” Pete starts, fear fading without leaving his body entirely, “you can do so much more than you’ve ever imagined.”

Patrick laughs tiredly, bubbles leaving his lips with each half-hearted giggle. “Then let me get started on fixing these wounds.”

Pete’s eyes widen and he pulls back a little, searching for hints of gold in Patrick’s eyes. “You can do that, too?”

“What?” Patrick pauses before his voice escapes in a body-shaking laugh, his tail twitching and pulling him away from Pete.  Just like that, Pete's overcome with every certainty that nothing-- no siren or storm-- could take such a vibrant star away. “What? No, of course not! I only meant I wanted to clean them out and see if there was any way to ease the pain. I think you will find that your body will heal all on your own, quicker than I am sure you are used to.”

Pete blinks. “Oh.”

Patrick smiles back, reaching for Pete and brushing gingerly over an already fading cut. “Oh.”

The water about them finally stills, the distance from the surface made impossible to tell by the night’s darkness descending into it. Patrick waves water across Pete’s wounds, muttering about the ease and quiet the ocean has when mermonsters are hidden from mind and sight. Even these words, though, fade into soft sighs and little grins.

“If they are smart, they will not try to find us again,” Patrick assures Pete each time he glances out into the dark. “Not tonight, anyway.”

Pete wonders if he should worry about Patrick's nonchalance, the supposed comfort he feels in the face of such danger. Instead, he steals a kiss from Patrick's lips; he pockets a bit of confidence for his own mind and thoughts.

Their shelter for the night is nothing more than a hole in some rocks, barely large enough to be considered a cave. For anyone else, Pete imagines it’d be small but, for them, it’s perfect.

Tails slide along each other, trying to entangle like hands or legs; they don’t remain twisted for long but the touch remains, as warm as the height of summer.

And, for the first time, it seems, the two of them sleep through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! Hope it was worth it!


	25. Coming-of-Age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The psychological and moral growth of the main character

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone who's been waiting for this: I am so sorry. I've missed writing this and, tbh, I needed to be writing it but life got hectic and it slipped away for a bit. I hope you can still enjoy this without hating me for taking so long!

 

_coming-of-age_

_a genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the main character who is growing from youth to adulthood. Personal growth is the most important characteristic of this genre. It relies on emotional responses and dialogue rather than action.  
_

It’s neither night or day when Pete and Patrick wake, the water around them working its gentle shift of hiding and obscuring any sign of sky. Pete opens his eyes slowly, the strange darkness not quite enough to blind him, not quite enough to scare him. It’s a length of dark fabric pulled tight across a light. Specks of a dim brightness peer through without piercing the other side. He waves his hand before his face, imagining he can feel the press of water to his skin, the sensation not unlike feeling for wind. The water’s there and he can feel it but in a far less noticeable way than before. As he considers the light pressure, he wonders if he’ll ever miss the way it used to be.

Without warning, Patrick’s hand wraps around Pete’s, pulling his arm down so he may kiss his palm.

“Awake?” Patrick asks, lips tickling Pete’s skin. Pete turns to his side, the end of his tail swaying to give him balance as he props himself up to better gaze at Patrick’s smiling form. Even in this lack of light, Patrick shines.

“Yeah,” Pete says, allowing Patrick to continue playing with his hand. “How long have you been up?”

“Not long,” Patrick says, giggling a bit when he stretches Pete’s fingers to see the webbing between them. Pete tugs away, strangely self-conscious, but Patrick holds tight and kisses his palm again. “We slept longer than I had thought; I think the change drained you. My abilities or powers, I suppose, did the same to me. The stars were already up by the time I had opened my eyes.”

“It’s night?” Pete asks, looking over his shoulder to see if this knowledge makes any difference in the darkness around them. Nothing’s changed and he frowns, narrowing his eyes. “How can you tell? Did you swim up?”

“Oh, no,” Patrick says, dropping Pete’s hand in favor of sitting. “We tell by the different light in the water. Not by sight, though. Feeling. It is gentler than the sunlight and the stars whisper if you listen closely. Do you want me to teach you?”

“No. I mean, yeah, but…” Pete pauses, hesitating in ways he rarely has before. “This is stupid but are you sure I’d be able to feel it? I mean, I’m not really a siren so—”

“You will feel it,” Patrick says upon recognizing Pete’s fears. He’s certain in ways Pete’s never heard him before. “Trust me.”

And Pete does.

~

“I know I told you we look for light but you need to close your eyes first,” Patrick says, the two of them situated across from each other with backs against the walls of the cave. “It will make sense later.”

A frown of concentration marks Patrick’s smooth features, water playing with the strands of hair falling across his face. There’s something new in his tone, something almost austere, and his voice vibrates through the water and deep into the marrow of Pete’s bones. Pete wonders if it’s a siren thing; he wonders if it’s a Patrick thing.

“Okay,” Pete says once his eyes are closed. Darkness and emptiness fall upon him like a curtain dropping at the end of a play, proof that nothing perfect lasts forever. He aches to open his eyes and reach for Patrick, to give up on this part and admit he’s a hybrid— a grotesque, the way he’s always been. The water grows cold around him— or perhaps that’s merely his own mind— and he’s certain he’s nothing more than an iceberg; he’s certain there’s a boat or ship destined to crash.

“Okay.”

He hears the smile in Patrick’s voice and it’s enough to keep his eyes shut.

“This is the way my mother taught me,” Patrick says, his voice so soft Pete imagines he’s feeling it rather than hearing it, waves of pretty perfection across his skin and scales. His words run like rivers racing to meet in some greater body with some greater meaning, a prayer Pete grabs onto like stars of his own. “Trust the water and its hold on you, for the water is what will hold you the rest of your life. Recognize and memorize its weight, its strength. And then wait for that to change.”

Pete’s probably not supposed to speak but he does so anyway, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “And how long does that take?”

Patrick pauses but it’s a brief stop. Whereas there was a smile staining his words before, this sentence is accompanied with a laugh. “The stars will decide. And my brother liked to say they were always early at being late.”

“And do I need to, like, meditate on some affirmations or something?”

“I…” Patrick’s startled confusion is the most reassuring part of this yet. “Pete, I have no idea what those words mean.”

Pete smiles and the ice forming around him seems to crack and splinter, something more promising holding onto him the way had Patrick said.

“It’s fine,” Pete says. “I just… what do I think about?”

“Oh,” Patrick says, clearly relieved that Pete hasn’t begun to speak in tongues. “Well, anything. Whatever you have thought or may think, the stars already know. They will latch onto something and, when they are ready to show you their light, they will know the best way to do so.”

It’s a statement that should terrify Pete but, somehow, it’s nothing he didn’t already suspect. How else could the sun know he’d been miscast to play the role of some human writer, some man named Pete? How could the stars lead him to the one being who could find a better script, a better plot?

How could the universe know he’d been understudying all along, waiting for a tail and fins— waiting for Patrick to grab his hand and press a sun charm back into it?

With the permission to free his mind from any sort of mystical focus, Pete thinks back to every book he’d ever written and every truth framed as a lie inside. Secondhand accounts of stories no one believed happened and good times that never were quite as good as he remembered. But the stories and the writing were always his favorite escape from the chaos inside his head.  _Write this, tell that, say the same old thing but make it sound new—_

Down here, the world’s on mute. Funny, how he’d always thought he’d get that in Heaven; funny, how he’d begged for it to happen somewhere he could actually appreciate it.

And how he appreciates it. Patrick’s words linger in his mind— his favorite sound— and he reminds himself of the weight of the ocean upon him, an undiscovered world impossible to detach from. His lips twitch up at the thought, a smile he’s sure Patrick can see. Is it any wonder he’s here? Surely, there are more than enough miracles to go around.

“Oh,” Patrick says, a soft exclamation Pete’s not certain he was supposed to hear. “Oh, oh,  _Pete_. Can you hear the ocean? Can you hear the world down here and the stars up there? They are… They want you to hear them.”

Patrick’s voice is almost different, breaking and reshaping Pete’s heart in ways he never knew his heart could be moved. He stiffens; he relaxes. He pushes into the rush of blood in his ears, the silence and stillness of the water and the words Patrick has said.

“No,” Pete says, unafraid of his own answer. “I only hear you.”

Patrick’s silence is pretty if only because it’s amplified by everything Pete can’t hear but knows is there— the certain widening of his eyes Pete can see even with his own closed, the parting of his lips, the way his face would soften and warm at the realization.

“Oh.”

This is the part where he should open his eyes and admit it didn’t work. This is the part where he should realize he doesn’t need special tricks to understand Patrick’s world. This is the part where he accepts his life and says that he only wants Patrick’s love.

No.

No, this is the part where the water turns at the last moment, where Pete’s stomach flips like he’s diving deeper than even Patrick would ever dare swim. His nails dig into the rock beneath him; the rushing in his ears becomes more like a waterfall and, through it all, he hears Patrick shift closer.

This is the part where things begin to change.

“Oh.” It’s Pete speaking, Pete with the epiphany. “Oh.”

And he finally opens his eyes.

He sees Patrick first— of course he does— but the sudden glimmering lights are there beside him, too. Each one like a spot of dust— of stardust, perhaps— with little whispers of his name each time they spin. Like confetti that’s yet to fall or meteors kissing the edge of the atmosphere. Like fairy lights or flickering candles. Like promises Pete can’t hear but can  _feel,_ oh god, he feels.

If Pete had breath anymore, this would be enough to take it all for the rest of his life. In some strange sense, he supposes it has.

“Is… Is this what you see? This magic, all the time?” Pete asks, eyes flicking from light to light. “Is this what the ocean is for you?”

Patrick’s there, surrounded by angelic signs and symbols, brighter than each one.

“The ocean is just a home,” he says, hands on Pete’s cheeks and steadying his trembling being. “And the lights are just my stars. Have you any idea how in awe I was at your night sky? Have you any guess how brilliant your sunsets and sunrises are?”

If Patrick wasn’t holding him with such a sure grip, Pete would shake his head. As it is, he merely shrugs, looking at Patrick with what he hopes is an answer.

Patrick laughs softly. “Pete, your world’s sky is what gave me hope when I was lost. The first time I saw the stars lighting up the darkest night, the first time I saw the colors of your sun seeping into the sea, I knew such a world— the human world— would be what brought me peace.”

For so few words, it’s a lot for Pete to take in. Still, he grows hot and looks for relief in the cool blues of Patrick’s eyes.

“You knew?” He asks.

Patrick smiles and lowers his lips to meet Pete’s.

And Pete knows that the brilliance of a thousand stars could never compare to this.

~

Pete’s given up on finding out what to call this— the time he shares with Patrick and the strange sensation of flicking his tail back and forth as they wait for the day to break. Patrick calls it safety; Pete’s tongue itches with the need to point out that it’s nothing more than hiding.

Patrick does the siren equivalent of pacing, crossing the cave in tireless back and forth motions with nothing more than a few swishes of his powerful tail— more powerful than Pete had given it credit for when he was a human and didn’t understand the muscle required to race through the waters with such speed. He mutters to himself in languages both human and siren based, enough of it slipping through in English that Pete understands Patrick wants to find a new place to hide, another beach for the starts to protect.

Pete understands this, he swears he does, but it still feels like losing.

Patrick reaches the back of the cave, says something in siren that feels a bit like a curse, and then turns to start swimming back toward the front. Pete runs his hands down his tail for the thousandth time since Patrick’s started this, distracting himself with the shine and shimmer of steel-colored scales. This only works for a time, though, and he eventually rolls his head back to look at Patrick.

“Do you have a plan, yet?” He asks, causing Patrick to pause and turn toward him.

“Oh, yes, I—” Patrick stumbles over his words, music to the pacing dance of confusion. Though he’s as frustrated as Patrick seems, Pete can’t help but laugh.

“Okay,” he says, shoving himself off the ground and toward Patrick. “We can’t go to another beach.”

“What?” Patrick’s eyebrows furrow together as Pete denies the one plan he clearly had. “Pete, that is exactly what we have to do. The stars will show us one soon. They will find somewhere safe, I know.”

“I know that they  _might_ ,” Pete says, side-eyeing the sparks floating around them. They’re lovely and Pete’s enamored by them but, now, they feel a bit like spies. He could never hate them but he also never trusted them. “What if they don’t? What’s the plan then?”

Patrick jerks away from Pete, head held high as he crosses his arms. “You need more faith. They have already granted you a tail and a life down here, have they not?”

“Yeah, but is it life if we’re living as prey?” Pete tastes the harsh tone long before it infiltrates the water but it’s too late to take it back. Patrick’s eyes widen and his cheeks grow red, nails digging into his skin as he tightens the grip on his own arms.

“Would you rather be a human again?” Patrick asks this slowly, carefully. Pete cringes at the clear struggle for control when his voice wavers. “Do you prefer your freedom and safety to—”

“I prefer  _you_.” Pete pushes forward, cupping Patrick’s face in his hands and only wincing a little when he pulls away. “I prefer  _us_ but we can’t have that if we’re always hiding.”

“You do not know hiding,” Patrick says with a cool gaze. “There is a difference between seeking shelter and hiding. I hope you never have to know the latter.”

Pete’s words feel sour in his mouth as he tries to fit them into something kinder, something Patrick will listen to, but he never has the chance to do so.

A change in the lights, a switch in the water, a figure at the mouth of the cave.

Patrick shoves Pete behind him and faces the threat, eyes already flickering gold.

“Wait, stop!” The voice that greets them is frail, seeming to shatter halfway through. “Please, I— I just felt that the siren prince was here.”

Neither Patrick nor Pete relaxes as the creature comes forward in jerky movements, Patrick’s lips pulled back to reveal sharpened teeth. As he bares his fangs and curls his fingers into threatening points of claws, Pete feels foolish for ever referring to him as prey. Patrick’s a predator and Pete would do well to remember.

“Only the monsters know I am near,” Patrick says. “Did they send you?”

“My people sent me.” Among the starlight and magic, Pete can make out that this creature is something not quite monster and not quite siren— not quite anything he’s ever seen. She— or so it sounds and appears— is small and bony, thin arms curled close to her chest as big black eyes with no whites or pupils stare out at them. She’s caught between the two species, smaller than either and nearly as disfigured as the monsters. “And though the monsters claim to be of us, they are not representative of what I am.”

Patrick’s muscles relax but not enough for Pete to feel safe.

“The merfolk?” He asks, sounding as if hates saying it. “The ones who refused to rebel.”

She nods slowly, dark hair curling around her skull like a halo as the water shifts around her motions. “We felt your return and your power. The rest are weak or frightened so they sent me to find you. They want to go home.”

“Home.” Patrick pulls back sharply, eyes narrowed as if it’s another word he doesn’t understand, another human thing without definition or explanation. He turns to Pete, every bit of him trembling as he lowers his guard and echoes the word with more force than before. This time, it has every meaning Pete could never understand, though Patrick’s desperate tone gives him an idea. “ _Home._ Pete, do you think…” He trails off, biting his lower lip.

Pete views this as permission to drift forward, to take a place at Patrick’s side and study the mermaid before him. Pretty words and promises have a bad habit of blinding even the most guarded beings and Pete would rather find the truth here in this cave than outside where a dozen monsters may be waiting.

“What do you mean by weak?” Pete asks, a gentle hand resting on Patrick’s shoulder to help ease the shock seeming to settle into him.

The mermaid blinks at Pete as if just noticing him for the first time, those eyes seeming even bigger than before when she turns the empty gaze on him.

“The monsters have been hunting us just as they have been hunting the prince,” she says. “But we do not have the stars to protect us. We can fight and flee but there is little we can do when it comes to starving or helping our sick. We… We have been waiting for the prince to help us.”

It’s not something Pete can answer, not something he’s meant to know. He turns to look at Patrick, as does the mermaid, and he hates how he can see pressure closing in on him like a setting sun.

Slowly, Patrick looks up, eyes wary and voice tense. “What do you mean by home?”

Hopeful. So innocently hopeful. Pete aches with the sound.

The mermaid flicks her tail nervously and blinks again, her eyes appearing as dark ink against the yellow-white dullness that is the flesh stretched across her face.

“The kingdom’s capital went missing when the sirens left it.” She and Patrick both share collapsed expressions at her phrasing, the way she keeps from mentioning massacre or murder. “Without your presence, it has hidden from the threat of greater invasion. We have tried to find it but no one has been able to. We were… We have been hoping that you would be able to lead the way.”

“Lead the way?” Patrick’s voice leaps up in pitch and he draws back from her words. Only Pete’s touch keeps him from fleeing entirely, the two leaning toward each other as if to each share the impact of her words. “I was just a child when I left. If I could remember the way home or if I knew of its fate then I would have returned far sooner than this.”

The mermaid’s expression falls and Pete’s struck with how young she looks, how shattered every piece of her seems. His fear feels unfair as her shoulders slump, her hands reaching to tug at thin strands of hair.

“But you must know,” She says in a brittle voice. “You are the last siren! The stars and moons promised!”

Patrick flinches at the mention of the moon even as his eyes soften at the sound of his stars.

“I am sorry,” he says, truly sounding as if he means it. “I would return in a heartbeat, I swear, but—”

The water shifts as he speaks, growing both warm and cold at once. Pete turns his head from the conversation, losing the rest of Patrick’s apology as he watches the stardust rearrange before him. Twisting, turning, dancing through the water like flowers set adrift on the surface, they spin into something new. Not a shape and not a pattern but…

“A path,” Pete whispers before jerking out of his shock and tugging on Patrick’s arm. “Look, it’s a path!”

Patrick’s eyes slip away from the mermaid’s and to Pete’s before following his excited pointing at the glowing stream of starlight reaching from the mouth of the cave. Patrick makes a sound that could almost be a gasp, some underwater version of shock and understanding, and then frees himself from Pete’s grip, rushing for the outside.

Pete follows without a thought, berating himself for letting Patrick rush off without a word. They still haven’t confirmed that it’s not a trap and Pete’s known for thinking the worst, expecting terror and nightmare. He’s filled with images of Patrick swimming into danger and traps, of harm and worse. His heart crawls up his throat as he sees nothing but Sunset Blades and snapping teeth, screams for help and nothing he can do.

“Patrick!” He calls, lost in his fears. “Patrick, wait up, please, I—”

He stops, moments before he bumps into Patrick.

Patrick, though, doesn’t turn. He doesn’t move and he doesn’t speak. Pete parts his lips to question the stillness before he turns his head just a fraction and sees what Patrick’s eyes are caught on.

The stream of light glistens like a galaxy around them, casting forward as fish and other creatures weave in and out of it without knowing. It lights up the ocean the way only magic can, tugging at Pete’s soul with its beauty and otherworldliness. It hums with something that sounds like both his and Patrick’s name at once, calling to them like a song. Pete feels its power in his bones, its promise in his heart.

This isn’t a path; it’s a chance at something greater. To hide and find safety or to run into the unknown with nothing but hope and dreams to guide the way.

Patrick reaches over. He takes Pete’s hand.

“It wants me to follow,” he says in a choking voice. “I think… I think it can take me back.”

Pete squeezes Patrick’s hand, taking comfort in the familiar feeling.

“And do you want to return?” He asks. He knows what his own answer would be, what his own selfish curiosities cry for and cling to. A writer, even without his pen and paper— always looking for the greatest story he can tell.

But he also knows what home would hold, the memories and disasters they’d be sure to face.

Patrick shuts his eyes but the lights before them shine so brilliantly that Pete wonders if it makes any difference.

“You once asked me if I believed there are things worth fighting for,” Patrick says. He turns to Pete with open eyes and a gentle smile before Pete can interrupt with apologies for his past malice, his cruel questions. “I do not believe either of us truly understood the question then but… I do now. And I no longer wish to leave my home or my people abandoned.” He pauses, faltering only when his eyes lock on Pete’s. “Is any of this foolish?”

“No.” Pete’s response is as immediate as the kiss he plants on Patrick’s parted lips, as insistent and determined as if he’s seeking the answer to all the arcane things Patrick’s voice promises. “It could never be foolish.”

Patrick smiles and giggles and Pete’s heart nearly bursts from his bright Patrick’s grin is, how perfect his laughter sounds.

“Very well.” He turns, searching for the mermaid and finding her huddled in the shadows of the cave, lit only by a few lingering lights not even she can see. “Come along, then. It is time to return home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I am sorry for taking so long with this. I don't even have an excuse but do know that I am doing well and I am alive. I hope you all are, as well. 
> 
> Again, sorry for taking so long! I would say it won't happen again but one never knows....


End file.
